Ho-Ho-Ho

As is prone to happen to me, I had a random thought the other day. As is also prone to me, I'm now going to expound on that random thought, despite the fact that there are perhaps better things to do with my time. The thought was this;

Who is this Santa Claus guy anyway?

I was in the grocery store when the thought hit me, assaulted even there on every direction by candycane striped objects, pervasive holiday music, and reindeer shaped turkey loafs. And of course Santa, in every guise imaginable and on the covers of magazines, bags of candy, and half life-sized cardboard cut outs. Just let it be known, my gayness does not approve of the last item as a decorative accessory, please do not buy them.

Finding the history of the venerable Mr. Claus is easy enough, just go here. My concern was more a philosophical one, with an emphasis on Concern.

It has been suggested that Santa is in fact omniscient. He knows things he should not be able to know. He was not there when you were nice or when you were naughty, or in those cases when you were both nice AND naughty at the same time (the doors were locked, the bedroom door was closed, and the lights were on, I'm pretty sure there was no one else in the room, and the video camera does not count.) How does he KNOW about your niceness or naughtiness? Omniscience is the only answer as to how he could know these things. This worries me, as I'm not so keen on people spying on me, especially fat old white men, who as a group have a history of making bad judgments with such information. But, his knowledge seems to have limitations. He only seems to have knowledge of some vague moral judgment about your behavior, it is not even clear that he knows what you DID to be nice or naughty. It also doesn't seem to include knowledge about non nice/naughty things, like the name of the book I am currently reading or what I had for dinner last night, unless I had Leg of Neighbor, which I think would go in the naughty category.

So, omniscient, no. A bit overly judgmental? It would seem so, yes.

The word omniscient always brings to mind the word omnipotent, which always brings to my mind the word impotent, and I find the thought of an omnipotent impotent Santa amusing, and I giggle.

But I digress.

Is he omnipotent? Hardly. He makes toys and flies them around to everyone in the world in one night. Impressive, without a doubt, but hardly all powerful. If he was omnipotent I don't think he'd bother with all the sleigh and reindeer crap, he could just will the presents to appear at your house without all the fuss of strapping the unruly creatures in or dealing with that drunk, Rudolph (perpetually red nose. Case closed). Speaking of Rudolph, an omnipotent Santa would hardly have had to worry so much about the damn fog.

To get even heavier, is Santa some fourth incarnation of God? God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost.... and Santa? He seems to be related to the others in his supposed spirit of giving and by calendar date. He seems to add a new festive element to them all, his addition to the Trinity could be a welcome one to the otherwise stogdy and musty old world three-some. Would that make it a Quadrinity? Dictionary.com says it would be "Quaternity", which I don't like nearly as much as either Quadrinity or Trinity, so I think we should abandon the God-As-Four-Guys theory. Plus the obvious animosity between Jesus and Santa shown to exist in numerous episodes of South Park is evidence enough for me of their mutually shared and understandable hatred for one another.

Santa. S-A-N-T-A. Take the T and switch it with the N. Now switch the last A with the N. S-A-T-A-N. Hmmm, there may be something here. Is Santa in fact just an anagram for the Dark Lord himself? Is he really just here to subvert the minds of our beloved children, turning them all to a life of evil sin? Greed perhaps? Gluttony maybe? Are the trampling of people in the aisles of Wall Mart and Target all part of his evil plan to spread his nefarious ways amongst us? While I find conspiracy theories entertaining for a short while, I bore of them quickly. They usually smack of a cop-out, and the idea of Satan is the biggest cop-out of them all. So let the idea of Santa-as-Satan go the way of the government Black Helicopters and the De Vinci Code, and let's move on to better things.

Maybe Santa is a hot daddy bear, or more accurately a hot daddy polar bear. This thought would make many a man I know weak in the knees, but not so much for me. I like them a little younger and a little trimmer. I have no need for a gym-god body, but he just looks unhealthy. But, he seems to keep truckin' along though, without fear of heart attack or stroke, so I guess it's working for him. And there's that whole Mrs. Claus thing.... maybe she's just a beard, but I doubt it. Then again, maybe he has a thing for short guys... that would explain the elves... Bah, whatever, or whoever, he does in his spare time is no concern of mine. Just as long as he stays away from the Reindeer, that's just kind of gross.

Is Santa a figment of our imaginations? And here I had to pause, half way across the parking structure, grocery bags in hand. Could it be that Santa is in fact only a farcical tale about a fat man in a red suit here to reward or punish my behavior by some system of ambiguous moral evaluation? Could it be that he is but a tool to make me spend more money on things that people don't need and on items that will go out of style at 12:01 A.M on Dec. 26th? Could it all just be a ploy to socialize me and everyone else in the world into a Judeo-Christian Capitalistic Consumer Frenzied Automaton? Do I really want to be this bitter and jaded at 27 years old??

Bitter and jaded is bad, I don't care to be those things. So Santa can be who ever the hell he wants, or what other people want him to be, I just love having a time of year to give stuff to the people I love, stuff of my choosing or making (Santa's not the only one with a workshop damnit!), and all the crassness and ridiculousness of this holiday season can just be an annoying buzz in the background, like a mosquito in the other room.

So Happy Holidays!! (fuck you Bill O-Reilly, you ain't getting a Chrissymas greeting out of me, I intend to include ALL people this season!), I hope you all get everything you want and desire this year. Ho Ho Ho!

Human Reality of Homosexuality

So a tragedy of epic proportions was leveled at the Seattle gay community today. On this, the 9th of December, the movie "Brokeback Mountain" DID NOT OPEN here. It seems that it has only opened in New York and L.A., those cities of decadence who just get everything. There will be no viewing of Jake-on-Heath lovin' for this homo or any others in this city. We will have to wait for yet another agonizing week for our chance to witness the greatness, and the hotness, of this movie. For some, the wait may just be too much....

Ok, so that's all overly dramatic, but I'm gay and I spend too much time with drag queens, it can't be helped sometimes. But I am a bit pissed. This movie is generating all sorts of Oscar buzz, and it's only getting a limited release. And I want to see it. Don't they know that I want to see it?!? But I will rant no more on that topic, something else has got me riled up.

I play a particular game online. It will remain nameless, it's identity is inconsequential. Suffice to say that on said game there is a "gay guild" and there is constant gay banter floating up the screen as you play this game. I voiced my displeasure about the movie not opening here this morning and was more than a little surprised by the response.

Some commiserated and wanted to see it too, but could not since it was not opening in their locations either. We joked about whether Jake was hotter or Heath, and all was good. Then the comment was made that an interview given by Heath Ledger was seen where he said that having to kiss another man nearly made him puke. I have not substantiated this as fact or fiction, yet, and it is ultimately beside the point. When I stated that I found that degrading and insulting to gays I was shocked by the response. People came out of the woodwork to defend Heath's statement. Comments such as "Well it would nearly make me puke to have to kiss a woman like that!!" or "He's just an actor!! If he has to say that to prove his masculinity that's ok!!" or "It's ok if you don't like homosexuals, it's your right to have your opinion and to state that opinion".

Now all of those comments I would expect from any number of right wing groups (just exchange "woman" for "man" in the first one), but coming from a big group of homos I was disturbed. Especially by the last statement. If it's my opinion that kissing a black person or a Jew makes me want to puke, few people would jump to my defense, unless there are KKK members floating around at the time. To actually have gays defend a comment like that is horrifying, and goes to show us all the pervasive quality of anti-homosexual rhetoric and thought. It even makes US think we don't deserve respect.

I got into a small argument with my mother a few weeks ago. She off-handedly said that seeing two men kiss made her feel uncomfortable. She claims to not have a problem with my being gay, or anyone being gay, so I was surprised by that statement. I told her I was surprised, and asked why she still had a problem with gays. She said she didn't have any problem, it just made her uncomfortable. "If you don't have any problem with gays," I replied, "you wouldn't mind seeing them kiss." She got upset, but we ended up having a very good conversation about the entire topic.

The fact is that I can see exactly where she's coming from. It was a shock to her life when I came out to her, she had never known a gay person in her life and had never had to deal with the prejudice that had seeped into her through osmosis by just living in this world. She has done a wonderful job of accepting and even embracing me and the whole notion of homos, but this thing still lingered. That it lingered is one thing, it proves how insidious these feelings are. That she tried to claim it was ok and in step with her acceptance of me and gays in general is another.

We rationalize away our prejudices more often than we know. We don't even realize what we're doing until confronted with the fact, and even then it is sometimes not enough. Opinions are the right of every person, certainly, but that doesn't mean that your opinion are RIGHT. For Heath Ledger to say (allegedly, and I hope he didn't because I want to like him) on a mass media circuit that kissing another man nearly made him puke is not going to be helpful to a group of people fighting for acceptance. To think it has no negative effect is naive, and to claim that "making this movie was a huge step, he can say what he wants!" is irresponsible. To have those comments coming from the very group of people it would be harming is terrifying.

I heard a great comment on the radio from the lawyer for Jim West, Spokane's recently recalled gay mayor (another story all together). He said the people out for West's blood were people who could not accept this "human reality of homosexuality". While this begs all sorts of statements about West's situation and West himself, I think that statement is the best summation of the issue I have ever heard.

The reality is that we're not going anywhere, we're not deviants, we deserve respect, we shouldn't make people want to puke, , we should be able to live and love without prejudice we should not have to have this discussion at all. And we especially shouldn't have to have this discussion with ourselves.

Added note: Here is a statment by Jake Gyllenhaal. "I’ve never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don’t think I would be afraid of it if it happened.” Now THAT'S a statment I can get behind! So to speak....

Snow!

For any of you that have not received a text message, phone call, or e-mail from me to alert you to this fact, it's snowing in Seattle. This seems to me to be poof that something big is about to happen Something like Lions and Sheep learning to love one another, Gays suddenly being urged by the Religious Right to marry, or Dubya learning to speak English and then actually saying something intelligent. It is a sign.

Hell has Frozen Over. Something big is about to happen. Wait by your phones.

Just a thought....

So I'm a man of the 21st century, I'm technologically adept, I get my news from the web (and the Daily Show of course), and I even maintain a blog, as you can see. I love advances that allow all people to live more happily, live more full lives, participating in the world around them. I support this!!

I have heard for that last few years complaints from news organizations that getting one's news from the "blogsphere" is dangerous, since anyone can post anything they want to as fact, there's no checking of information or sources, and generally people throw up subjective crap all the time, in an attempt to further their own position or just out of naivete. This problem of course extends to the musings on personal web logs as well they say. I agreed with this statement as it is sound in logic and stands to reason, but I had never experienced first hand the phenomena.

I will name no names, I will take prisoners and not tell where they are, my lips are sealed, but suffice to say that in the past few days of perusing some blogs I have been a bit horrified. The arm-chair referee has given way in this century to the computer-chair scholar, dispensing lessons and advice about all sorts of topics they don't have the capacity to tackle. I have been reading with my jaw on the ground all morning, and something must be said.

I am in education for a living, and while I may be teaching "just" music lessons I am interested in education as a whole. A good free public education in this country is truly one of the things that has made it so great. The fact that support for that education system has been waning in recent decades is made oh too evident by much of the material floating the blogsphere, and the drivel unceasingly dripping from the mouth of our President (our PRESIDENT people!!!! who voted for this man?!?).

Listen to me. To be uneducated is not a good thing, no matter how you spin it. You are a valid and lovely human being, without a doubt, but it is not a good thing. We complain that people are "ignorant" when they hold beliefs that reason dictates are ridiculous, like say "gay people are of the devil and are destroying the moral fiber of this country". We can get away with complaining of that persons ignorance in that case, there is support from all us homos backing up the fact. But it is a dangerous game making the claim that someone else is stupid for something they say, they offend quickly and often become violent, and many times there is no group to support you any more.

But I am making that claim, right here, right now. People, we are being stupid. We're acting like idiots, we are allowing ourselves to remain uneducated and are making decisions that are bad. We are all products of our environments, without a doubt, and this country is letting us down in many ways. I am doing my part to help that, or at least I'll die trying. But we are also self-sufficient individuals, adults who can make decisions on our own. Pick up a book. Take a class. Start with the assumption that you know nothing, and then LEARN. Blathering idiocy has no place in the oval office, it has no place anywhere. Support your local schools, support your teachers, support your students. The world depends on it.

Would you like a charger with that?

I had a thought today, and it has me bothered. I am applying for graduate school conducting programs, and I must say this is not a fun thing to do. I'm applying to music conservatories, there are not a lot of good ones, and there are about 300 times more people applying than there are spots available. As any economist will tell you, that unfortunately takes the power out of the hands of the buyer (me) and puts it into the hands of the seller (The Big Music Schools). Supply and demand, and there's too much demand.

This has me worried, for a couple of reasons. First of all I don't like having to convince people that I'm worth their trouble. If they need convincing then I usually feel like they've already made up their mind about me and any more effort on my part would merely be shameful and fruitless ass kissing. While I'm all for many forms of ass kissing, the figurative version is not one I do.

Second is the fact that I have issues asking for more than I feel I deserve. Many of these schools, as with many other institutions in this country, are waiting for some of their prospective candidates to run up to them, do the aforementioned ass kissing for awhile, before they start politicing their way into the hearts and minds of those in power. I am not quite that type of person. I will send in my letter of introduction, my application, answer all questions leveled at me honestly and candidly, and wait for the system to do it's job, which is to provide a fair and balanced assertation of my qualifications as compared to, say, Suzi Wong from Manitoba who wants the same position as I do.

Perhaps I am too timid in all this. I don't demand too much for myself. I take what is given to me, if it is fair I am happy, if it's not fair I complain. A recent story to illustrate my point: I go into Verizon to get a new cell phone, where I must then buy a new charger, a car charger, and am offered about $100 more in other options, which I don't need, can't afford, but wouldn't mind having, but can't afford. While I am handing the clerk my debit card some smartly dressed woman also buying a new cell phone leads her sales rep to the "Wall O' Accessories" and says in a slightly jovial, but deadly serious voice "So, if I'm going to buy this phone from you, what are you going to give me for free?". Her clerk hands her a charger, a car charger, and about $100 more in other options, just as my clerk hands me back my now empty debit card.

Some may say, "Well get some balls man!! Ask and ye shall receive!! They're a big greedy company anyway, just there to take your money!! Get something out of them too!!" While this argument holds some appeal to me, since they are big and greedy, there to take my money, and I do want to get something more out of them, I can't quite make myself step over that line. That line that makes me in the end look just like them; like a big greedy consumer, out for all the free crap I can get, where I can stick it to them whenever I can. Where fairness is no longer the goal, where morality and subjectivity are indissoluble, and where my humanity is measured mainly by the amount still remaining on my debit card.

It is at this point that I look for solace in Karma, that cosmic righter of all wrongs. Perhaps that woman will be in a tragically ironic car accident while trying to plug in her new cell phone with her new free car charger, where she will be fine (I wouldn't wish bodily harm on anyone. Well.. there are a few people..) but her BMW will be wrecked and no one will give her a free one, and she will have to sell off her yacht to someone who low-balls her on it, and she realizes the error of her ways and founds the New Harvard School of Socially Responsible Economics, thus ushering in a new golden age of fiscal responsibility, fairness, and humanity.

I often dream big, but those dreams don't usually include the joy of me getting free crap from Verizon. Perhaps that where I'm going wrong...

Applying for graduate school is turning out much the same. I write to them in humility, imagining a level headed and fair response back to my inquiries. Something like, "Thank you for your interest, here is what we offer, here is what we would like you to do, here is what else we would like to know about you." Instead I have gotten this answer, "We are highly competitive here, our programs are for professionals, it's hard here." At this point Suzi may write back and say, "Wonderful! I'm a highly competitive person who loves being pitted against my fellow musicians in To-The-Death play offs. I love how condescending your second statement was, it will certainly drive off all those you deem to be "non-professional"!! I love hard things!!"

While I agree with her on point three, I'm not quite ready to state the other points. I'm not a wildly competitive person, and I didn't love the condescending second remark. I am a professional, I explained that in my introduction letter. Is teaching music full time not professional enough? Hmmm...

I tend to over think things ("Duh," you say, having read this far), and that is probably the case here. Everything will turn out as it will, I will do my end of the work, they will do theirs. I will stick to my morals, I will stick to respect for myself and these institutions. I will leave my fate up to Karma, and hope that perhaps Suzi decides accounting is really more her speed than music. Maybe she can get a job with Verizon, where she can then try to figure out why they're loosing so much money on their accessories...

To boldly go where no man and vulcan have gone before.

This just cracked me up and I needed to share.

All-Ages Kirk/Spock Archive

Everyone deserves love. Hopefully the Federation will allow them to marry.

There are worse things I could do....

Not often do I get days during the week where I have no obligations, where there isn't some lesson to teach or a party to schlep out show tunes for or a concert to hack my way through. Weekends are not imune either. Even two hours of work in a day requires a complete restructuring of plans, making sure that lunch with the friends you haven't seen in weeks doesn't run long or that you make it to the gym with enough time to actually break a sweat before you have to dash off to check on Becky's scales.

Today I had a real day off.

I will not go into how my day began, but suffice to say a certain friend on a certain Pacific Island and I have a strikingly similar way in which we think a day off like this should begin, and it did.

I then drug a hung over local friend of mine out for a delightful jaunt to HomoDepot for project supplies, then to Costco, aka Gay Bulk Mecca, where I purchased two huge and fabulous coffee table books, "Neoclassicism and Romanticism", and "Art of East Asia". And cheese. One must buy cheese at Costco. I think they must have the cow in the back churning out the stuff, the price is so low. After another hardware store trip for more fun supplies it was back home to blow things up for a bit and then take a little nap.

And then the fun began. The same friend from the prior shopping festivities was having a few people over for dinner, and I was invited along. We had stew that would have made Julia Childs chortle with delight, and enough wine to make her roar with approval. As I was sat, doubled over with laughter at the tales told at the dinner table, I was reminded why it's just too damn fabulous to be gay. We, as a people, can take just about any event in our lives and spin it into a fantastic tale of epic proportion over a few glasses of tasteful booze, and make even the most horrifying life-event into comedy the likes of which you've never experienced before in your life. I don't know if my tummy hurts now from too much food, too much wine, or too much laughing, but it was all fucking great.

Oh but it doesn't end there. Our host for the evening has a new favorite bar, the Crescent (pronounced cre-SAUnt of course, it's FRENCH!!!). The Crescent is, by all definitions, a dive bar, where the number of teeth in the heads is easily out-numbered by the cigarettes hanging from lips. It was Karaoke night tonight, and the microphone was presided over a drag queen that was the spitting image of the 50-year-old, male version of Blair from Facts of life. Just ponder that for a moment....

We all sang, including myself, who feels much more comfortable making music at a big stringed box instead of at a microphone. I sang "Hello Again" by Neil Diamond, the greatest of all booty call songs (listen to it, you'll know I'm right) and even got up to do a second song "There are worse things I could do..." from Grease, who's second line "..than go with a boy, or two" makes it all worth it. The bar was an indescribable mix of people, from the middle aged woman who had decided that shaving her head today would be a really good look (she sang "Friends in Low Places") to the duet of the wife-beater wearing straight guy and the homo who's trucker cap read "FUCK" in giant letters, to the pretty bartender-ess who served everyone like they were her family with a huge smile.

We're a crazy bunch, us gays. We'll take in anyone. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. Your motivated, your rich, your rugged individualists. We come in all shapes and sizes, with every problem and joy in life. And we'll all get together on a Sunday night and sing terribly into a battered mic and not care a wit about any of it, and drink and laugh until we stumble home to write silly blogs. We may joke, we may bitch, but we're all in it together, shaved heads and toothless grins aside. The straights breed, which we certainly need to replenish our numbers, and a they do a multitude of other glorious things, but do they ever get together for nights such as this? Bless their hearts, but I'm not so sure they do.

So yay for the straights, but Fuck Yeah! for the gays.

Halloween in Baghdad

A short, funny, and perhaps slightly terrifying Halloween story for you all out there. There are sorority girls involved, so the weak of constitution should perhaps move on to the next blog.

This past Saturday night was Adult Halloween. More specifically Gay Adult Halloween. We don't go door to door for candy (well, figuratively speaking perhaps, but that's beside the point) we go bar to bar for booze, and that always works out better on a Saturday night, as opposed to a Monday night, AKA this year's Kiddy Halloween. My Scary Gay Halloween started in an elevator.

I was on my way home from picking up last minute supplies for my costume and stepped into the shopping center parking garage elevator with two 20-ish, blond, dressed to the hilt, Paris Hilton-meets-Britney Spears sorority girls. There are 6 levels to this particular parking garage. Since numbers are no longer adequate to remember the floor you came from, they also color code them, name each level after a major world city, along with a picture representative of each location. The first level is Seattle, the next Hong Kong, etc etc down to Bangkok and Sydney. If you can't at this point find your level I think you are then considered too stupid to operate your car and it is confiscated, or if that's not the policy then it should be.

I was headed to Bangkok and the Girls where headed to Sydney. The discussion started even before the doors had closed, and went something like this.

Girl #1 "Sydney is cool, I wish I were there right now"

Girl #2 "Yeah"

#1 "It's way cooler than all these other ghetto places", gesturing to the other locations listed by the buttons. I am at this point just about to step out onto my floor, 5/Orange/Bangkok/Thai Buddha Statue Picture.


#2 "Yeah, totally. Bangkok.... isn't that where they've been dropping all the bombs in Iraq?"

I literally choke with laughter as I'm stepping off the elevator, reeling from what I've just heard.

#1 "Uh...", now confused, "I think that's Baghdad...." As the full force of this exchange hits me I double over laughing hysterically, the doors slide shut behind me, the girls still debating where the bombs are landing. I'm not sure that they even realized why I was laughing. I laughed until I nearly cried.

It was Straight Adult Halloween for the most part that night as well, perhaps they were just dressed up as Colossally Stupid and Achingly Slow for their costumes... but I somehow doubt it.

I want an umpa lumpa NOW daddy!!

I think most of us can agree that "reality" TV is a scourge upon our airwaves, with its contrived scenarios and crass drama based on the mixing of carefully selected bags of neurosis and emotional instabilities. There's little that is real about it, or perhaps what is truly scary is that in reality that is what we truly have become. I'd like to not believe that last though, so I avoid Unreality TV like the black death.

That being said, I have a confession. I have a guilty pleasure and I'm not ashamed to admit it (well, a little ashamed...). There is a subgenre of reality TV shows that I adore, that I seek out when I have the time and inclination, that I sit giddily to watch, not moving from the comfort of my couch for anything short of fire or Jake Gyllenhaal at my door.

I can't get enough "Supper Nanny" and "Nanny 911".

But let me tell you why.

As I have said before, I teach the music to the kids, in the form of private piano and clarinet lessons. I see about 45 of them each week, my youngest being 5 years old, through high school age, and a few adult students. I have a vested interest in their abilities to pay attention, to behave, to be intelligent and respectful little humans, and they are so very very often deeply lacking in all of these things. I find myself, at the ripe old age of 27 often saying to myself, and to others, "Kids these days...." It's sad, it makes me feel like a crotchety 80 year old.

But I implore you to watch a few episodes of one of these Nanny shows (either will do, they're nearly identical) and you may be singing the same tune. On one recent episode we all got to witness the kids of one family scream at, bite and then spit on(!) their mother as she tried to discipline them for their ridiculous behavior. The look on the Nanny 911's face was priceless; abject horror.

The Nannies stay for one week, trying to get the family back into shape, a feat which in the first 10 minutes of the show seems will certainly require divine intervention, or kiddy electro shock therapy. But the Nannies weave their magic of set boundaries, consistent discipline, and parent/child communication and always by the end of the week the kids have morphed from rabid pack animals out for blood and candy, to loving, respectful little human creatures. It's a sight to see, and it makes me want to hire one of these chicks to follow me around to my lessons for 2-3 weeks.

But I have made an error. So far I have made it seem as though "kids these days" are somehow flawed, that something has changed and the kiddies being squeezed out pop into this world in some way broken and incapable of paying attention or behaving. This is not the case. Kids are generally as they have always been, 90% a clean slate for their environment to write upon it what it will, 10% genes they can't avoid. That environment consists almost complete of their parents of course, and here we come to the crux of it. The Nannies work with the kids, but they work mostly with the parents. Never have I seen a show where it wasn't quite clear that the problems these kids are having stem directly from something insane the parents are doing, and never have I had a demonic student who didn't have Succubus and Satan for Mommy and Daddy.

I have a devious plan (as I usually do) to fix this crisis of Dirty Devil Children. When I become Commander of All Things, a roll I will assume in a few years I hope, after I pay off my credit cards and do some traveling, representative and informative episodes of Super Nanny 911 will be required viewing for all pregnant people and their partners. For after spawning, there will be troops of Super Nannies to follow up on you, a real 911 Nanny Help Line for you to call, and all through the land there will be happy and respectful children, not spitting and biting hellions. Parents everywhere will grow kids of quality again, like prize heirloom tomatoes, who will cure cancer and run for political office, and usher in a golden age of existence, all because of some English Nannies and their Naughty Circle.

And this music teacher will be a happy, contented man, who can say "Kids these days" with a smile instead of a groan.

Philosophy 101

Many claimed that I must be crazy, and I even thought I must have lost it a bit, but I chose to go to college in Montana. Not only did I go to college in Montana, but I left another college in western Washington, a lovely liberal, highly rated college in beautiful Bellingham, smack between both Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. I had a good group of friends there and I could walk around holding hands with another boy without fear of death by bludgeoning. But unfortunately there were also two sadistic piano teachers there, who had managed in one year to nearly kill my love of music all together, and after the second year there I had quit playing the piano and needed quite badly to leave, lest I give up 15 years of training and change my major to natural resource management and move to the wilderness, never to be seen by human kind again. So I went to Montana (perhaps ironicly given the last statement..), where the sky is big and the teachers are fabulous. And where I also learned that I could walk down the street holding hands with my boyfriend and not be killed, and that while yes two lesbians did have their house burnt down while I was there, the community was very upset about it. Ok, so damming by faint praise, yes, but faint praise is better than none at all. For example, Mississippi. You will not hear me praise Mississippi. ...................... See? silence....

There are a few other things I learned in Montana (tipping cows is not possible, they do wake up and then run. If you're lucky they run away from you). One of the best classes I took in all my years at either university was one called Great Traditions, to appease my Ethics requirement. It was less Ethics and more Philosophy though, and was taught by the great Fred McGlynn, who even while battling lung cancer refused to stop smoking, and with him you just had to respect that. In a nut shell this is what the class was about; each great philosopher in history comes up with some unifying reason for doing things, not quite a meaning of life type reason, but some direction giving idea that all their other thoughts fit into. We looked at four such greats, Aristotle, Emanuel Kant, John Stewart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I have no desire to re-live the entire class for you, nor could I do it or these four guys justice, but here is a brief rundown of what I took from it, and at the end there may even be a good point to it all! Keep reading.....

Aristotle was all about Virtue, with a capitol V. How do we live a virtuous life? What exactly are the virtues? How does good and bad fit in there? He spent quite a bit of time trying to figure all that out, and in the end had quite a few profound thoughts. But unfortunately it all ended up being very subjective and requires a hell of a lot of control on the part of humanity. I think we all know that is not one of humanity's stronger qualities. So we move on, with the ideal of virtue on our minds.

"I Kant understand..." The comic lament of the philosophy student. I like puns, so I giggle too, but more because it's so very very true. Kant was German, and he liked long complex sentences that go on and on and refer back to antecedents that are unrecognizable by the philosophy student or perhaps even to Kant himself and when it is all said and done he has not quite made a point and you wonder why you are reading this crap anymore because the German language seems to have neglected to include periods and this, oh great fellow Germans, is the meaning of life. You get my point. But if you can get through it all you find out this; Duty is why it's all done, Duty is what keeps us on the straight and narrow, Duty is what will get us through it all. "Do your Duty" because it's the reason we're all here. Shirk that Duty and thumb your nose at the reason for your existance. While the guilt of that notion does work for awhile, I think we all see the problem. When someone requires that we do our duty, we usually resent it, guilt aside, whether we agreed with them in the first place or not. That proves to be problematic. To his credit Kant also said this little thing about "Treat all humans as ends in and of themselves, and never as a means to and end". So, Duty, not so much. The other thing? I like it.

If you have ever wondered where the idea of "The greatest good for the greatest number of people" comes from, it's John Stewart Mill, the father of Utilitarianism (not Spock, sorry). And in that ism is Mill's defining ideal; Utility. What purpose does it serve? What purpose do YOU serve? If it, or you, serves no purpose, then it's not worth your time. Is it more ultilitarianistic to help that one person over there being eaten by a hungry lion, or to protect these 30 people from maybe possibly being eaten by that hungry lion? John would say the latter, the guy getting eaten may disagree, and quite quickly we have come up with the problem with John. While the greater number may need to be happy and not be eaten by lions, the individual counts too, and while utility is great, masturbation of all sorts is great too, whether it serves a purpose in the end or not (the inherent utility of masturbation aside of course :) ).

Finally in our tour of great minds and their interesting little ideas we get to Nietzsche, the philosopher with the most unused consonants in his name, and in my opinion the best little ideas I've read thus far. Nietzsche was a critic, and a critic with a sense of humor. He had no problem attacking other philosophers throughout history with quite witty and brilliantly scathing remarks, often so wonderfully worded that you either had no idea what he had just said or thought you had just been complimented. In other words, he was a drag queen, and for that we love him. But more important than his critique of silly thoughts was his own philosophy, which revolved around this idea; creation. That which brings the most meaning, the most happiness to our lives is creation and creativity. Creation exists in so many forms, from the creation of works of art, to a document at work, to a delectable souffle, to the creation of a loving and beautiful home. We are creatures that desire above all to create, and when we do we are the most happy.

He was also pretty keen on life being about living, not about death or some silly "afterlife". He was not a church going man.

I went to Dr. McGlynn's class every day, and loved every second of it. He was a great teacher and the material was amazing to me. Above all Neitzsche spoke to me. Finally someone who without hesitation placed creation at the top of human existence and could back it up with a witty remark. I was still in serious doubt of my commitment to music and the arts, not because I myself had any doubt of their profound merit and the need of humanity for them, but because I thought I was alone in thinking them that important. Music does not sound near so sweet without someone to share the sound with. It was a turning point for me, along with hearing the song "How can I keep from singing" as sung by, of all people, my lovely piano professor in recital. I knew at that point I would spend the rest of my life in the arts and in trying to help as many people as possible experience their beauty and importance. There is nothing more truly human than art. Monkeys use tools, dolphins can do math, only we create art, out of only a need to express that which is inexpressible in each of us, and I love that.

So when I find other people creating wonderful, beautiful things in the world, I love it, and I want them to know I love it. And if one needs any more proof of how important creation is to us all, sincerely compliment someone on their creation and watch them beam, and rightly so. For both people, nothing in life feels better.

It comes, it goes...

I live within strong spitting distance of the richest man on earth. I could throw a rock and hit any number of other people that man has also made very rich. This city's (and many many other's at this point) obsession with coffee has made another bunch of people quite flush with cash. I've even served hors d'oeuvres and cocktails in some of their houses as a member of the Gay National Guard. As a member of that esteemed brotherhood of mens, I have catered in decadent houses that would amaze and astound, and feed a third world nation for a year.

While serving food to these people is fun and mildly demeaning, and who doesn't love that, it's not what I do for a living. I teach the music to the kids, more specifically the piano and the clarinet to the lovely children of the 21st century. While I will avoid a diatribe on the qualities of the 21st century child I will say this; attention spans of fruit flies. I think I may soon try strapping a TV to my head and playing hi octane instructional classical music videos (don't laugh) whilst spinning plates from my finger tips and shooting smoke out my ass. Perhaps that will get them to practice. But I digress. I teach the kids the music, and they hand me checks, which I have to say has been one of the nicest parts of the deal this past week, and let me tell you why.

Summers are slow, the some kids take the summer off, some quit all together, and generally there just isn't much money coming in. So, by September of this year I was poor. Not in the way that the smelly guy down on the corner is poor, or the way that that large black woman pulled out through the roof of her home in New Orleans 3 days late was poor, but unable to buy groceries without borrowing money from my friends poor. I have no desire to turn this into some pity party, so no pitying comments, it wasn't that bad.

But it did suck. I was stressed out of my mind as bills kept arriving, as the bank account started to overdraw, and my belly started to rumble (on the brighter side I think I lost a few pounds....). I've known that type of stress a number of times in the last few years, music lessons are not a wealth building proposition, but it's been awhile and I had forgotten how much it sucks. When broke I have no motivation to do anything at all, not even to clean my room, because all I'm thinking about is when the next check will appear and I can get back to my life. Everything goes on hold and even the more fun things in life become stale and loose their draw.

But now I'm through that, my students, who for just this week I love more than my mother, have all given me their parents' money and things will be fine again until next summer. But I couldn't help but sit back and look over the whole situation and be a little embittered by it all, socialist that I am. Waiting on the rich and not so fabulous right in the middle of it all didn't help, certainly, as their income in one day is more than I make in a year (not an exaggeration, if anything it's an understatement, which is crazy to me). But I have an even greater appreciation for the poor, especially the working poor, who's numbers are growing horrifyingly in this country. The stress on ones life is immense, and if my experience is anything like that of other peoples', the energy and desire to make your situation better is perhaps the hardest thing to come by. It's wildly demoralizing and downright angering when some prick drives by in his BMW and throws a McDonald's wrapper out the window while you're walking home with top ramen and plain lettuce.

While unfortunately one can't get it without (perhaps ironically) paying some cash, I recommend checking out Stephen Bezruchka's presentation on Health and Wealth, broadcast on Alternative Radio on NPR (http://www.alternativeradio.org/). Perhaps you can catch it on a broadcast. In a nutshell he says that the lack of "caring and sharing" (while kind of silly sounding he explains it well) and the gap in wealth is making us continuously more unhealthy (we're 29th in the world for developed nations). And, surprisingly, the rich are more adversely effected than the poor. They statistically die earlier because they're wealthy, which is a wee bit poetic. Dark, but poetic.

At the next event I cater I plan on passing out small cards that tell the patrons that their wealth is killing them. That there are documented scientific studies that show having more money than everyone else is eating them alive and that there is only one remedy. My address will then follow, "cash only please". If I get enough I'll share with those for whom I care. Make up your wish lists now.

Hello, my name is Sean, and I'm a Socialist.

Found this to be fun, let's see what everyone else is, eh?

You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (16% permissive) You are best described as a: SocialistYou exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

"Everybody gets a man! Everybody get a man!"

A must read for all you bloggers in the bloggesphere (wipe your nose dear, you've got a dangler....)

Oprah Stuns Audience With Free Man Giveaway

Oh Oprah, how you've changed the Amer-I-Can! landscape and reshaped women of today with your depth of humanity, and pocket book. Speaking of pocket books, mammy needs a new car, please send ASAP.

Quotes

I began collecting quotes a while back, here are a few I like.

Nihilism
At some point every intelligent, self aware mind becomes a nihilist. At that point you either kill yourself or you get over it.

NPR interview with some right wing nut job
"Married liberals have a lower birth rate because they abort their babies."

my friend Michael
"You’re just jealous ‘cause the voices only talk to me"

from the movie "Saved!"
"I know what you’re looking at Mary, and so does Jesus"

my friend Kevin
"There are so many beautiful and wonderful things out there right now. They just don’t necessarily have anything to do with people."

From The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley
"Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of referential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience."

From the preface to Hegel’s first book
"Nothing is easier than to judge what has substance and quality; to comprehend it is harder; and what is hardest is to combine both functions and produce an account of it."

Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, II 1
"It is a matter of course with me, from instinct. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, too exuberant to stand for any gross answer. God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers - at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!"

Peter Mack
"Spilling your guts is as attractive as it sounds."

William F Buckley Jr.
"I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence."
"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive."

Frank Zappa
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

The West Wing
"You’re demons are shouting down your better angels"

Tanqueray commercial
"It’s no coincidence that the fist letter in Martini is "Mmmmmmmm!!"

Sibil’s psychiatrist
"Tell her it’s perfectly ok to think about killing herself, but could she please just wait until I get there"

Albert Einstein, 1954 "This I Believe" essay
"I sense that it is not the State that has intrinsic value in the machinery of humankind, but rather the creative, feeling individual -- the personality alone that creates the noble and sublime."

Praise be to the Sci-Fi !!

I adore Science Fiction. And if that makes me a big geeky nerd, then so be it. I just finished watching Solaris, which I remember getting terrible reviews at the time of it's release. I finally ended up putting it on my NetFlix list. Amazing. It's beautifully made, wonderfully acted, but more importantly it's Sci-Fi at it's best. The medium allows exploration of ideas beyond the scope of our every day life. Thus it allows us to create a context of hyper reality, illuminating with a brighter light our ideas and beliefs. To place them in a contemporary and "real" context would not allow for a complete examination of the depth of idea and thought, the environment would distract from the essential. We cannot carry these ideas to their complete and absolute end without bending reality and experience. In the medium of Science Fiction (and Fantasy certainly) we can take ideas to the extreme, showing us better how the idea will and can impact our present though. The environment becomes a new character in the story, a new influence on our experience, in a way that other genres cannot. The totality of the idea is created, and from that totality all component ideas can be applied, seen in full light, and realized in our real lives. At it's best science fiction transcends our accepted reality and opens new paths of thought, deepening our understanding and appreciation for the world we live in. See the movie, you won't regret it.

What's in a title?

So I went to the book store with a good friend of mine, and we were deeply amused by a number of titles of books as we walked around, most notably the first on this list. I mean really, can you read that with a straight face?? So, I went and looked at the New York Times Bestseller List to see what other fun titles are floating about out there. Here is a short list, and some thoughts to go with them. Authors names have been excluded to protect them, and piss them off.

LIVING IN GOD'S LOVE - Does it pool up on the floor? Can I just roll about in it? I hope there's no strange odor...

100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA - Only 100??? A shame that the author excluded himself....

CONFESSIONS OF A VIDEO VIXEN - This one is too easy. So to speak.

ON BULLSHIT - I have this book, I started to read it, but it was, well....

AMERICA (THE BOOK) - "FUCK YEAH!!"

LANCE ARMSTRONG'S WAR - Is HE the one fighting this thing?!? I knew he was fucking up to something.

THREE NIGHTS IN AUGUST - Hey, what happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas, damn-it!!

ROOM FULL OF MIRRORS - My roommate's memoir, please pick up a copy, we need to pay rent.

ASSASSINATION VACATION - And you thought your trip to Hawai'i was exciting!

YOU: THE OWNER'S MANUAL - Hell yes, FINALLY! This thing had better tell me about this rash...

NATURAL CURES "THEY" DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT - You actually just have to check this dude out, he even went on the Tammy Faye Show to promote this book. Unfortunately "THEY" are the little voices in his head, and that gout you have won't be cured by smoking basil through your ass while whistling God Save the Queen, sorry!!

YOUR BEST LIFE NOW - "I don't think about the past, Darling, it distracts from the now."

HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU - Well shit.

FRENCH WOMEN DON'T GET FAT - They are demons, obviously. This book is a book about demons.

HOW FULL IS YOUR BUCKET? Wasn't this a song by Sir Mix-A-Lot?? Or maybe it was MC Hammer... I can never remember....

JIM CRAMER'S REAL MONEY - As opposed to PHYLLIS STEPHENSEN'S FAKE MONEY which is BOOOORING!!

THE PERRICONE PROMISE, by Nicholas Perricone - This title beckons to me, like sirens at sea or like chocolate cake at midnight. WHAT IS HE PROMISING?!?! and will my laundry be clean when he's done??

EGYPTOLOGY - This is a children's book, actually. When asked "what's this book called?" most parents sadly respond in broken syllables "e-gip-to-LO-gee", and put it back down. AMAZING that it's made it to the NY Times Bestseller list!

LEONARDO THE TERRIBLE MONSTER - Hey, I hated him in Titanic too, but this is just rude!!

FAIRY DUST AND THE QUEST FOR THE EGG - A touching story about 2 gay men and a lesbian. You can fill in the rest.

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? - If you need this one answered....

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS - A witty, amusing, and yet touching title, by Augusten Burroughs, who is hot. If you are reading this, call me, there's more flattery where that came from.

THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ISLAM - I do believe a 12 year old could write this one.

THE UNITED STATES OF WAL-MART - This just makes me cry...

BETWEEN A ROCK & A HARD PLACE - Gay porn on the NY Times Bestseller list?!? We HAVE arrived!!!

WHY DO MEN HAVE NIPPLES? - Come here, I'll show you.

RICH DAD, POOR DAD - The sequel to "Jennifer has Two Daddies". The title "My Daddy has a Boy Toy" was passed over, as was "Sugar Daddy's Boy... and Daughter!!"

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING - As a gay man, I'm confused.... I expect a lot of things, do they mean my next drink? my next trick? this title is far to vague for my tastes....

THE PILL BOOK - a MUST HAVE!

Island Time

As anyone who has come within ear-shot of me in the last 3 days knows, I just got back from a trip to Hawai'i (yes, it has an ', it gets edited out, for "ease of use" perhaps...) where I had the time of my life and where my brain and heart still reside, my body has unfortunately decided to come back to Seattle. I still feel like I'm there though and am having an interesting time readjusting to life here. I am slowly getting back into the swing of things here, though periodically odd feelings hit me, as one did tonight.

On that glorious paradise floating in the middle of the Pacific they have something called "Island Time", which is just the Hawai'ian version of Gay Standard Time, otherwise known as being late. The Gays have brought it to an art form and like to refer to it as being "fashionably late". At times they are so terribly "fashionable" they arrive and *POOF*, they literally become a Prada shoe. It's a sight to see, granted, but a wee bit annoying. Case in point, my birthday party started at 7pm last night, except it actually started at 9 when stunningly fashionable people arrived. But they did come, we had a wonderful time and I haven't a single complaint about the entire evening really, but I did chuckle as those 2 sets of pumps and a stiletto heal walked through my door.

Tonight I had a little piano-social-pot-luck thing to go to. It was lovely, we played for each other, ate a tastey pot-luck dinner and generally tried to pretend that we aren't all big music nerds who want other big music nerds to talk to. It was fun, I left at about 10 pm, and as I was driving home I thought about my friends in Honolulu. I looked at the clock, which said 10:15 and the thought struck me that it was only 7:15 their time, the night was young and the sun barely down. My night was, for all intensive purposes, over, theirs was just getting started. I then remembered what it felt like to be on the other side of the equation, relaxing at 6pm on O'aho and imagining that it was 9pm on the mainland, and how sad it was that those poor suckers' nights were tapering off and mine was just beginning. I would shed a tear and sip my umbrella'd cocktail with a sigh and a smile. I had felt like I had gained 3 hours of my life back, every day, morning and night, despite the fact that 24 hours still filled the day and that mine had merely been shifted a wee bit. I felt it none the less, and was more relaxed while on the island because of it.

Island time is talked about either with a roll of the eyes or outright scorn I found, but I suddenly have a new appreciation for it. It seems to grow out of the fact that somewhere in the mind, whether conscious or sub, the people on Hawai'i realize that the rest of the world is already at work or done and headed to bed, while they are just getting up and showering or sitting down to dinner before catching a movie. They smile a little, sit back, relax and hang loose. We should all be so lucky, and I've decided that I will be that lucky, whether in Seattle, lovely Hawai'i, New York, Paris or the Moon. My Gay Standard Time will now be Island Time, which in the end is not really being late, but is just sitting back and enjoying life for 3 hours more every day, without pressure, without worry, without the rush. I feel more relaxed already, and if it makes me a bit more fashionable, it certainly can't hurt.

Hmmmm....

Somehow things got very heavy on this blog very quickly... I guess I must be in a mood. I will try and come up with some more entertaining and less depressing things soon, I promise.

The State of Help

While there has been plenty written in present days about the ongoing tragedy in the Gulf coast area and New Orleans (not to mention the tragedy going on in Washington DC), and I certainly don't need to add to the row, I found something I wrote a number of months ago that seems apropos. Here it is, with a bit of added material to bring it up to date.

Why do we have such a strange relationship with offering "help"? Self-sufficient is the rule of the day, anything less is seen as weakness of character. Pull yourself up by the boot strings, sink or swim, these ideas are ingrained in the American Way at this point. I have to agree with them to a certain extent, I'm a very independent person who feels like success comes from hard work and dedication. But, when someone really is in need we still many times find excuses not to help, or even worse treat the person like they have done something wrong. We seem to believe that if you do something wrong you will need help, ergo if you need help you've done something wrong. It perhaps works one way, but any Logic 101 class, or a bit of common sense, will tell you it doesn't always work the other way. The problem is we start to ask ourselves "Do we really need to help someone who has done something wrong? It's their own fault that they're in the state they are, they should have been able to take care of themselves." We rationalize our withholding of help and sleep fine at night.

A friend of mine from college killed himself last Spring, and needless to say I was very affected by it. I have had some run-ins with suicide before, but no one I knew as a friend. I had no idea he was battling with some manic depressive issues, was on and off medication, etc.etc., though we were admittedly had fallen out of contact and no longer lived in the same state. He was in Montana when it happened and I was in Seattle, but suddenly everyone out there was saying "I wish I would have known, I would have helped...", and I was certainly thinking the same thing. Is it guilt? Is it knowing it’s too late to offer help that we suddenly DO start to offer it? Would our help been enough in the end? Blame is easy to throw, but the reality is that blame and truth rarely have much in common. In the case of my friend we must chalk it up as tragedy, and hope to do better next time and move on.

Perhaps we can move on to the Gulf. Why does it take so much DEATH for us to offer the help we posses? The truth about the mismanagement of the levee repair, FEMA, the federal government, etc., is coming out and people are outraged, but it's TOO LATE PEOPLE. Who in their right mind let things get to the point they did? The point where an entire major city in the United States of America is under water, completely vacated, and thousands of people are dead. We didn't do what we could to have made that city safe. How many other things out there have we passed over, for monetary reasons or base reasons of pride? I think the list would be long, but let's think more about the personal, individual aspect of the issue. How many people are without health care? How many people are being used as expendable expenses of their employers' instead of valuable assets to their company? How many people suffer alone at home with any number of problems they don't feel that they can talk about because they may be seen as weak, broken, or unable to help themselves? The number makes me ill, and very sad.

My last complaint on the subject is a personal one. I once said to someone I know that I "wanted to help people," to which he responded "Who are you to think you can 'help' anyone? Help yourself, leave other people alone, they don't need you offering your 'help'." He saw offering help as a sign of arrogance.... "I'm so much better than you, let me help you!" I guess I can see the insane logic, but it terrifies me. So my friend is dead and a city is underwater, my last worry is coming off as arrogant, I'd rather try and help. If more people in the world and in white houses truly had an interest in helping instead of worrying about arrogance or lack of self sufficiency I believe the world would be different, perhaps even better.

Random thoughts, read at own risk

Does genius reside in action, or does it lie within the individual whether they use it or not? I feel this is a chicken/egg conundrum, and is ultimately solved by the more important question "If genius goes unused, do we care that it existed in the first place?" So, I go with action as my bar, not that I claim that genius doesn't exist outside of action and within people, but stating that I don't care if it does. It does no good if it's not used. "Does the tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one hears it?" Who cares, no one is there. Alcohol does me no good in the glass, and the genie doesn't help me inside the bottle.
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We are crowded with esoteric personal definitions. I'm all for personal expression, but does it help when that expression, by it's very nature and spirit, separates us from those other minds and souls around us?
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The gap of knowledge and experiences will always lead people to try to find answers, and the answers that step into that gap will depend heavily on the person's intelligence and environment. The truth of the matter is the majority of people out there do no posses the capacities to get beyond the simple and gross answers, religion being number one on that list. When posed with questions, especially disturbing ones, religion holds comforting, rewarding answers, and truth holds no sway over comfort and reward, especially when truth seems cold and harsh by comparison. But I have to ask, why can't we find answers that are comforting and truthful?
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Somewhere in the last 30 years, the Republicans have shifted from the "Do what is right" adult-like party (contra the Democratic "Hey man, you're keeping me down" party) to the "Let me do what I want!" childish party. They act as though they are children on the playground, with playground "rules" and adolescent "logic". Reason and restraint are out, self-serving results are in. Win at all costs, take out those in your way, subvert the truth to get your way. When did the Democratic party become the parent saying "No Billy, you can't do that. I know you want to, but you have to think about more than just yourself...." The Republicans need a spanking, but the liberals keep sending them to the time-out matt...
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Wisdom is a transcendence of power. It makes the need for crass manipulation unnecessary, for through wisdom one better understands the nature of the problem faced, and the solution is an organic one, desired by all and natural to every party.
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Greatness exists in nearly infinite shapes and forms. It is the integrity of the pursuit of greatness that counts most.
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Innocently question, don't knowingly accuse. You'll be amazed by the results.
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Why is it that we have such a problem with someone thinking they are smarter than they are, and so little of a problem with someone who thinks themselves to be too dumb? One is "arrogant", the other is "humble". I'd personally rather have someone be too smart than too dumb, yet we seem to want to stamp out the bright and vocal. We see it in public schools, we see it in public office. Why do we have such an aversion to intelligence?

The Past

I don't like half-way measures, nor abstract ideas. I have decided that resenting the past is rife with both these things. For example I start thinking "What exactly am I resenting? Individual acts? the ideas that led to them? the people around the event?" Far too much ambiguity I think. And how far back do we go? What led to what really? If that one shitty thing hadn't happened in '88, would you have done that other thing in 99? Who can say?!? I start to think, why stop part way down the path? So, I plan to stop with half way measures and ambiguous blame throwing, and start blaming my mother. That's right, my mother. It is concrete, she's sitting right over there, and she is obviously the root of it all (for if she had only been able to push my father off none of this would have happened). This way I no longer have to blame myself or look to the future (it only contains more crap), or generally work to make things better. And now at least I have someone to blame.

On the Radio

"We spend a third of our lives, 30 years in bed!" the radio man said. My friend couldn't get over how that made him feel like so much of his life was being wasted, that it could have been put to such better use than just sleeping. He thought it was a waste, that work could have been done during that time, or he could have been at the gym, or playing golf.

At first I felt the same. So much time asleep, while the rest of the world moved on... I started thinking about what I would do with that time. The gym, work, and golf where far from my top choices frankly. I thought that I might read more, but then realized that that puts me to sleep, so maybe I needed to avoid that instead. Eat maybe? No, I get tired after that too, and I'd have to go to the gym more to make up for the extra food I was gorging myself on. I'd just wear myself out there and have to go to bed. So eating and the gym were out too.

I'd like to say that more productive ideas of how to spend my new found 30 years came to mind, but sex was my next though, of course. "I'd probably like to use the extra time for sex," I thought, and if I couldn't find anyone to help me out, I'd be fine just habitually jerking off. It would be like being 20 again... But even sex makes me want to sleep afterward... So no extra sex.

I realized there was a real problem here; everything that extra time was spent on made me just want to go to bed, and that's just what I'm trying to avoid!! Then a thought struck me: What the hell is wrong with sleep?? For the love of god, it's one of my favorite things!! Right up there with sex, food, massage, and good music. I mean, is there a better night than a fantastic dinner with a hot man, mutual massage leading to mind blowing sex to great music (Aretha? Emmylou Lou? Rachmaninoff?) all capped off with... SLEEP!! Curled up next to him, music fading, good food in the belly, post coital afterglow, ASLEEP.

So I had a new thought then; fuck this radio guy and fuck my friend, I'm going to bed. And I'm jerking off first.

Pregnancy and Individual Manifest Destiny

Back before medically and socially supported abortion (and still today in many third world and backward parts of the world) women were saddled by unwanted pregnancies. So often they didn't even want sex, let alone a baby to go along with it. In the 1800's male birth control (i.e. condoms) really started to help, but until the pill there wasn't much control for the woman, it was entirely up to the man, and refusal of sex on the woman's part was not always an option.

Today it is different, women have control, and, in this country as least, they can hopefully say no to unwanted sex. But strangely this creates a moral problem for our modern society; if a woman has the choice to have sex or to use birth control (or in other words her pregnancies are within her control), than is it her fault if she does get pregnant and does she then deserve to have the child she doesn't want (i.e. "sleep in the bed you made", or "you deserve it you slut!"). Add to it our desire to demonize sex and always make it the "evil" choice over abstinence and the problem compounds. We don't morally agree with abortion because it "kills life" yes, but even more than that we view pregnancies today as "deserved." You were given every opportunity to avoid the pregnancy, and yet you didn't take those opportunities, and you only got what you deserve. If you hadn't gone and gotten pregnant you wouldn't have had to kill it. You're a monster because you chose to be one. The guilt in that is mind numbing.

Is this the modern state of Manifest Destiny? Are we in the age of Individual Manifest Destiny? We seem to believe things happen because we somehow DESERVE them, like judgment or reward is raining down from some heavenly sphere. "I'm rich cause I deserve it. You're not rich? Well you must not deserve it!" Or here's another one for you, "I'm right because I won the presidency, and God wanted me here because I'm right. Would he have elected the wrong guy?? hehe" Demonizing a woman for wanting to have sex, blaming the poor for not deserving to be rich, and the will of the people overpowered by a deity who thinks "W" was the best choice for the job. I sometimes wonder about the world we live in.... or at least the other people living here with me.

One might claim that I'm making excuses for people who HAVE done something wrong and DO deserve what they get. I would not be so bold as to refuse the righteous retribution such people have coming to them, that's why we have a legal system and bright lads and lasses running it. I guess I just don't know a lot of sane people who woke up and said "I think I'll get pregnant today and then kill it!" or "I'm such a great person, I deserve to be rich!" or "I think I'll be President, it worked for my daddy and would look cool on my Heaven Resume! hehe". I think people today DON'T get what they deserve, which is healthy discussion about sex, adequate and fair pay for the work they do, and a swift kick in the ass out the door down Pennsylvania Ave. Let's stop throwing blame and self righteously believing we deserve things and start finding solutions to real problems and helping our fellow humans get everything they truly do deserve.

Keep the experience

So I have fought against creating a blog for quite some time now, despite the fact that some part of me was fascinated by the possibility of the instant fame associated with and wealth that so often accompanies them. My reservations began right of with the name, "blog". It sounds like an uncomfortable blockage in the nose region to me, or at best a strange culinary treat from East Asia. It certainly doesn't inspire me to write great thoughts, or even semi tawdry half-baked ones. But what is in a name really?? and it seems to be here to stay, so I've moved on. I'm also not so keen on putting my private thoughts out there for public dissemination and dissection. I learned some time ago that many of my ideas make people irate and they yell at me, one of my more less favorite things in life, so opening myself up to that abuse made me less than thrilled. Then I realized that you can only WRITE complaints here, and words don't assault my ears, only the eyes, and I can ERASE them if I don't like them! Such is the power of the Blog Master (which I would take on as my nickname if not for the aforementioned aversion to the adorable word "blog"). Finally I read a friend's new blog (find it here http://marsupialquiche.blogspot.com/ ) and I was moved and impressed over the cliff of writing my own. So here we go, but with a couple facts, I dare say warnings even;

1. I don't do diaries. Not that there's anything wrong with them, you go right ahead, they're healthy and motivating to nearly all 12 year old girls. I will not be telling anyone about the new shoes I bought today or the OH SO CUTE!! color of my baby's poop (I don't have one anyway, but we've ALL had to sit through those stories...). I crave substance and depth, I can't help it, so if I'm going to read about someone's day I want it to mean something more, and I want my writing to mean something as well.

2. I piss people off. I don't try, in fact I hate making people mad, but I seem to have a knack for it with some of the things I say. I love to challenge people's beliefs and their vision of the world, and for the favor to be returned, some people go for that and others react VIOLENTLY. So, if I make you angry, I apologize, please try not to leave mean things on my blog, I'll just erase them (see above), but they will still make me feel bad and that sucks for me. Hopefully you feel guilty now and there won't be a problem haha. Constructive discussion is ALWAYS welcome though, so post away!

3. I'm busy so sometimes there will be nothing new posted on here. Please go outside and do something productive and DO NOT sit by your computer waiting for more material to be posted, I will feel bad that you're waiting and become ineffective in my life and will not write on my blog. You see the obvious cause/effect problem here I hope. In other words, go do something productive or I won't be able to write in my blog, I suggest the gym or a medical mission to the third world, they could use our help. Let me know how both go so I can write something about them here. Many thanks in advance.

4. I'm rarely serious, and yet always am (?). If you get my sense of humor, god bless you. If you don't, I'm sorry, and god bless you. The literal meaning of my shit is sometimes not what I'm going for, look a bit deeper and you might find something worth a second look. One could say this about a couple of other things in life as well.

5. I'm a music fanatic and philosophy junky, so if music, philosophy, and the human condition don't suit you, please go here http://www.rnc.org/. Enjoy!!!

6. If you're still with me you must really like me, and for that reason I really like you. If you're male, 25-40 years of age with a cornfed midwestern or stocky wrestler build I like you even more, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

Lastly, a favorite movie of mine is Six Degrees of Separation, I recommend it to all, and one of the best parts is a monologue by Stockard Channing at the very end after all the crazy events of the movie have unfolded, where she laments the conversion of the events in our lives into anecdotes to be told around the table at parties where they loose the essence of what made them real and the experience becomes cheapened. I was moved by the thought then and I am moved by it now and will attempt to keep the experience tangible and meaningful at all times here and in the rest of my life. Ultimately that's why I'm writing this blog (my but we need to find another name for these things don't you think?!?) Aloha and Namaste!