the ron paul revolution

i got a chance to grab some coffee with a few friends from church. they're a couple who settled in sacramento about the same time i arrived, so we've got that connection. other than that, we don't have much in common, except that the guy's name is chris.

anyway, chris was wearing a ron paul 2008 shirt, so i asked him why he likes ron paul. he responded with a barrage of federal and corporate conspiracies which have tamed the masses for a century. but before i get into that, let me say what i thought about ron paul and his fans before this conversation took place.

What I Thought About Ron Paul And His Fans

1) Ron Paul is a libertarian, a label I loosely apply to myself.
2) He wants to get rid of a lot of "federal" and corporate entities that have been around long before I was born (like the Fed).
3) He loves the constitution, and would apparently get along with Thomas Jefferson if they knew each other.
4) He's against the war in Iraq.
5) Ron Paul will not win the election, thus discouraging me from filling my brain with anything other than the above, except that...
6) Ron Paul Fans are mostly made up of annoying conspiracy theorists and arrogant, too-educated kids who are convinced that ron paul will save the world from the clutches of evil america.

so going into this conversation with my friends, i had a few presuppositions that i didn't feel the need to disclose. after all, i wanted to be fair and open-minded in hearing why someone, given number 5 of what i think, would support ron paul to the point of t-shirt-wearing. some people clearly like ron paul with a passion, and i wanted to know why.

chris started off docile but as the ball got rolling, his true passion came out, and it came in very long paragraphs. so i'll summarize what he said. feel free to skip points that you feel do not apply to yours or anyone's life.

What Chris Said In Response To My Question, "Why do you like Ron Paul?"

1) chris wants to build a house in the woods, but he can't do that because he would have to build it according to government specifications, like having the plumbing installed by a certified plumber and the electricity by a certified electrician. he'd rather do it all himself, but the government doesn't let him.
2) the dollar has devalued itself because of a corporation called the Federal Reserve Bank, which from what i gathered is a monopoly that controls our money and has devalued it severely. he also said something about the gold standard that i didn't quite catch.
3) he doesn't want the US army on other nations' soil.
4) he doesn't support government subsidies of schools because these subsidies contribute to our failing education system [he tied this in with #8, somehow].
5) people helping people is more effective than the government strong-arming people in order to fuel programs and subsidies.
6) 85% of the media is controlled by five corporations, whose vested interests include not reporting honest media.
7) bill clinton was elected because he was backed by the bilderberg group, which i learned tonite to be a conference of 130 influential people who dictate the happenings of the world (a la manchurian candidate... without the brainwashing... or with??!?)
8) americans are very educated but are unaware of the societal under workings that control their meager lives.
9) for all these huge problems, knowledged citizens can fight back by... i don't remember what he said to that point actually.

ok so as you can see, chris didn't really answer my question about why he likes ron paul, but he did help enlighten me with a new set of thoughts about ron paul and his fans, which i will summarize here:

What I Now Think About Ron Paul And His Fans:

1) Ron Paul wants to help Americans move to the woods and build houses without the assistance of plumbers or electricians.
2) He will get rid of taxes, government programs and subsidies in order to allow Americans the joy of helping out one another on their own accord.
3) Ron Paul is to the scheming Bilderberg group what Chuck Norris is to bad guys - an inspirational character that defeats fictional evil.
4) He will release the vice grip of media conglomerates to the hands of the people.
5) Ron Paul will remove the government's evil schemes from the US public school system, finally allowing teachers to arm their students with the know-how to defeat oppressors (who to students are their teachers).
6) He's against the war in Iraq.
7) Ron Paul's fans are even more cynical and angry than I am (chris can build a house in the woods if he wants, but those darned government rules misplace his energy from housing-construction to anger) and this makes me feel good about myself.

and, finally, here's why i think the ron paul revolution is a waste of time and energy.

1) i have to fix the christmas lights outside my house tomorrow, even though i think christmas lights are a pain and i turn them off every night since i can see them from my room. but my mom likes them, so i need to fix them.
2) i have a take-home exam to turn in tomorrow.
3) i got food poisoning this past weekend and i threw up in the middle of the night. i had to grade exams the next day for six hours, and then take a two hour exam.
4) my sister is making holiday cards for people, and they look gr8!
5) i really like music, but i don't think i like micro-house. i've tried hard to like it but after giving it an honest listen, i think i'd prefer more ambient music or more melodic music.
6) at church last week, a woman challenged us to give up our shoes for the homeless.

its a grind

i'm at a cafe called "it's a grind". the more accurate name would be, "it's a mediocre cafe with baristas straight out of the wb and too-loud music and random black kids dancing outside on friday nights." maybe thats what they meant by "grind".

also notable at this cafe is me, about to do homework, except with a green headband on. yes, it's a fashion statement (probably saying, "i am gay or i work at urban outfitters") but it also serves a functional purpose. it keeps my ridiculously long hair out of my eyes, which is crucial in order for me to dominate this math econ homework.

dan just informed me that this is "like the third post about being in a cafe. good job." well to that i would say, the previous sentence was the third - nay - fourth use of quotation marks in this post alone. also, this is the third paragraph. this is the third time i've said third.

but yeah, about the wb-likeness of these girls at this cafe, right now working is a shift leader and a cashier girl. the cashier girl looks just like kristin kruek from smallville, except this girl is more friendly and outgoing, and not really mysterious. the shift is older, and she's like the oldest sister from charmed. i've never seen a full episode, but i imagine they have similar personalities, and they probably look the same. i guess i don't really fit into this wb thing b/c there are no asian males in the wb.

here comes kristin kruek! ok... time to study and look smart. buy!

the tallest man, the broadest shoulders

This is a secondhand account, which was suggested to me by the protagonist of the story. So note - I am not an obsessive homosexual, as some readers suspected.


When I walk around a big city with my friends, I admit that i take stock of their build, athleticism and fighting abilities. So, if you're a girl, your stock is very low, especially if you're hot. Being hot will increase chances of harassment or attention from crazies, something I'd like to avoid if at all possible. So, sorry my hot lady friends, we're going to have to hang out in the suburbs.

If you're a guy, you should be athletic and strong, because I am not. If someone random homeless guy tries to attack us, don't depend on me to do anything except run away (3 varsity track letters.... ok they were for pole vault).

or, you can be dave park.

Here is a picture of dave, who is comparably huge standing next to me.

Ladies, swoon. Men, swoon too. Let me tell you a story about dave, one that highlights his broad shoulders and validates his heroism in the face of danger.

He was on time, a little early even, walking from the subway to Clara Barton High School in the heart of Brooklyn. There, he teaches math, or tries to, amidst confessions of resignation from his disenfranchised students: "yo mista, you can't help people that don't wanna help theyselves." He trudges on, putting up on the board some algebra or geometry. Sometimes he'll come across a youth who, instead of completing the square, would rather "make you bleed duck sauce". He suspends such types. Not all of his students are violently resistant to math, though they do beg the question, "Man, what the F*ck is up wit dis chinese nigga?"

So there's dave's normal work day, which is today, friday, december 7th 2007. He's been teaching at Clara Barton for five months, life-coaching urban students who hurl insults, threats, duck sauce and racial epithets at him. That's what he had looking forward to his day as he walked from the subway to Clara Barton High school when he turned the corner, took a few steps down the street and glanced into the alley.

A few boys engaged in horseplay, he initially thought. Just messing around, like he used to do with kids at the tae kwon do lessons he taught years ago. He took another step towards Clara Barton, but his conscience tugged his gaze towards those boys for a second look. There was a black boy, in his late teens, on top of a younger latino boy, whose head was in the aforementioned boy's hands and was being pounded against the ground. A split-second moment seemed like an eternity, as the latino boy gasped for air, shouted for help and caught, just for a split second, the worried eyes of our hero dave. The black boy's hand fell down to his victim's pockets, searching violently for a cell phone, a wallet.

The defender of the weak, the protector of the poor, dave did not hesitate. Dropping his bag full of failed homework, he took a few powerful strides towards the mugging. the assailant wore a blue puffy jacket, big enough to conceal a knife or a gun. Dave grabbed the jacket, pulling the boy up to his feet, and threw him against the alley wall. "Don't Move!" bellowed our hero, in a rattling baritone that temporarily stunned the mugger. When Dave looked down to help the victim, the black boy took off running.

"Th..Thank you," stammered the latino boy. Latino man, really. He was an 18 year old custodian at the Brooklyn Museum, but that's all the information Dave got before the frightened boy/man ran away. So there he stood, our hero, gathering himself and the events that had just occurred.

Picking up his bag of homework, papers bleeding with red ink and mistakes, dave walked to school, taken aback by his own heroic instincts. The adrenaline began to fade and rational thoughts began to creep in: What if he had a knife? Or a gun? What if he'll remember me and come back, with bigger, stronger goons?

But if he does come back, Dave will be ready. Whether he knows it or not, displays of heroism spring from an inner light that never turns off. Moments like this are not exceptions, but definitions, so we can now see Dave for the hero he is.

Also, after this incident, Dave bought a gun, which he carries everywhere he goes. Yes, he'll be ready.

Ladies, Dave is single. Gentlemen, Dave has no guy friends either. Be his girlfriend, or just his friend, and you're guaranteed a strong, athletic chinese nigga when walking down the unpredictable New York streets.

And call me when you get to the suburbs.


(kidding about dave buying a gun, though i would if i were him.)

i <3 showers

there's freedom in the routine, in being able to maneuver the turns and obstacles, knowing what to expect, what to avoid, when to hide or when to appear. maybe freedom is the wrong word.

i take a shower and after 10, 20, 30 minutes, sometimes i'll forget to shampoo my hair. sometimes i'll shampoo twice because i forgot i'd already done it. i'll step out of the shower and realize i hadn't put on any soap. once, when i started drying off, i heard the pop-pop of shampoo still cleaning my hair - i'd forgotten to rinse it off. i'm not being absent-minded. when i get in the shower, when the water turns on and rushes through the pipes and out the shower head, when it hits the ground like a jar of coins spilled onto the floor, except over and over again in a constant blur, something in my mind turns on that allows me to finally think. i get engrossed in these thoughts, which become as clear as day, or as obscure as night, or as trite as these long long sentences, and so inevitably the utility of the shower becomes the thought and not the shampoo or soap or whatever it is i forget to apply. cuz finally i'm free to think. it's the freedom of knowing that there's nowhere else to be but there, and nothing else to do but stand in heat. not that those things are bad, being places, doing things. but when i step into the shower, all of my expectations are met.

here in this cafe, i could always be doing more. i could be studying more, socializing more, being more perceptive or more introspective or more anything. i could be at home, at school, in bed, in a gym, in the shower, anywhere else but here. the freedom of choice is a bit too much, because i could be doing everything, yet i'm only doing this: typing, listening to music, drinking coffee. i'm doing those three things. i'm not doing everything else.

when someone asks me how i'm doing, i tell them. when someone asks me what i did that day, i tell them. i work well with these kinds of questions, ones that have answers. i work well with schedules that i can bend and shape, that i can maneuver and change. but this kind of freedom, the empty kind, is too much, the freedom to be nowhere at once, compared to the sad finite of here.

madvillian take me home. literally, home, not something more dramatic. the workers here have been staring at me for the past 15 minutes waiting for me to leave. adioz.

Creeping

I don't mean to look, and for the past few minutes I've been trying to keep my eyes on this screen and nothing else. But I have to look. My gaze is somehow magnetized to this pole, and it's unfortunate that someone's noticed.

I snagged a good seat at a busy cafe in Davis and I haven't moved for several hours. I had worked productively for several of those several hours but the weariness of research had combined with my hyperactivity from three cups of caffeine. Not wanting to lose this prime seat, I resorted to people-watching as a sort of release. It's not just sitting here judging people. Sometimes, I can find an ethereal connection with an unaware stranger, some memory from my past or future. An asian man, looking for the bathroom key. How many times have I been him, and how many more until I'm his age? Some arabic students, friends who clamor and discuss this or that with fluid aspirations. Without the arabic, I've been them before, at a Starbucks in Cleveland, at Choco Latte, with Fred, with Prisca.

But as it goes, the inevitable cute girl had to take the nearest seat to the table directly across me. She was small, asian, probably a church-goer if one could make such a distinction. Nothing about her was particularly alluring, but her movements held a kind of self-consciousness that certain minorities have. She probably sees it as a weakness to overcome, but I like it. That table became base for my eyes, a place from where I dare not stray, lest I be captured or tagged. She's still sitting there, her profile facing towards a middle-aged woman on a computer, who is facing me. People at that table keep moving, directing my attention to them and to then her. When a guy next to the computer woman stood up, I quickly glanced at him and automatically at cute girl, and I felt two immediate eyes look up in my direction. The fastidious computer woman caught me creeping, and my reaction plead my guilt; I quickly affixed my eyes to my screen.

I want to take a break from all this, the watching, the watched, but my only other option is impossible. I brought along a book in case I get bored, a suggestion from my brother. Unfortunately, the title "Lolita" is imprinted bold on the cover, along with a pair of giant nymphet lips. For someone accused of creeping, busting out the most historically creepy book would further confirm the accusation. This especially because I think computer woman still has her eye on me.

So instead I blog. And not even in a blog, but in TextEdit, in tiny font in case someone's trying to look on. Do I hate myself? No, not at all. In fact, I'm priding myself on a recent mix I made. I got 60/60 on my last math exam. I am wearing my cowboy shirt.

I have many positive qualities that outweigh my creepiness in this moment, which, to my conscience, is important in getting a good night's rest tonight. And if I don't, God, let it be the three cups of caffeine.

wheat

The trade of wheat globally is pretty complicated, as it is for all commodities. But I'm exploring wheat, specifically durum wheat, as a tradable commodity for my international agricultural trade and policy class. So far I've found out that I don't know how to interpret data. I feel like I'm learning a lot, but someone who's better with data would probably be able to see some significance in the numbers, whereas I don't. That was really boring to write and even more boring to reread.

Something about international trade is really interesting to me, but I'm having a hard time really pinpointing it, especially since I suck at trade theory. I think I like it because of the irony. People that are into development seem to lean towards protectionism, a good handful of them at least. They vilify the United States (even though the EU is a bigger culprit) as the protector of the bad guys, subsidizing giant multi-national corporations in order to further their interests. It's such a story-book picture, and for people looking to pick sides, the argument seems obvious. The US protects their economies, currently and historically, so country X should be able to do the same. Level the playing field, they say.**

Here in America, in small towns built around a single commodity, the mood is strikingly similar to that of the bleeding heart development advocate. Farmers can't compete with cheap labor across our borders, and it's our government's job to protect us. Like the Brazilian orange farmer, we've been farming oranges for generations. So why should you give some Brazilian a break, when you can help out your own people? Raise the tariffs and represent your people well, Senator. Protect the well-being of your constituents.

Both views are two sides of a bigger story, which has way more than just two sides. These views are ironic because they're so short-sighted, and they lead to protectionism, which if there is a "solution" is not that. It's like a game in which we're stuck in an equilibrium with no incentive to move. That is, unless there are bold and informed decision makers that can arbitrage a different equilibrium. I guess that's what Doha was all about. I find irony in people's negative reactions against the WTO. Doha was supposed to be a stage for arbitrage, where the influence of Florida citrus farmers would equal that of the Mexican sugar farmer. Still here, there are bad guys (the EU, the US) and good guys (the G20), a the classic showdown in Cancun, and further talks that might lead to some dramatic end (the WTO disintegrating). I remember reading last winter about how slowly things were progressing in Hong Kong after the last ministerial conference. It was disappointing to see how frustrating the negotiations were, and how they couldn't come to an agreement.

But who else will plead the case of the African rice farmers, besides the Seattle protesters and Oxfam (which is not an economic research group, and has an agenda on a lot of their "research")? Well, hopefully, it's the WTO, the Cairns group, and the G20. Cairns and the G20, in short, are groups representing several nations that mean to stand up against the implicit one-sidedness of WTO agreements, which are usually spearheaded by the big nations. The Agreement on Agriculture as a system is pretty complex, and to battle one aspect of it will just open up an opportunity for protectionism elsewhere. One might say that the G20 is fighting a meaningless battle, but I think they at least have the means to do it, and the influence to demand true liberalization and free trade.

I mentioned in response to a post recently about international trade that our individual decisions don't really make a difference. What I was thinking about was this: The US marks up domestic sugar through tariffs over 100%. That means we're paying more than twice as much for US sugar, and we don't have access to cheaper foreign sugar. So what the heck is an individual consumer supposed to do about that? Nothing, except complain, or move to Mexico... That is, until next year, when we've committed to opening up to Mexican sugar. We'll see how that fares. Not like anyone really notices.

Japan imports rice exclusively from a few American rice corporations. The Japanese people don't see that rice in their supermarkets; the rice is for cattle and sake. So Japanese cattle farmers get cheaper rice and make more profit on the margin because of it. Japanese consumers still buy expensive Japanese rice. Japan has seemingly liberalized their markets since they've "opened up" trade for rice, but not really. And what is an informed American or Japanese citizen supposed to do about it? Again, complain, move, or work within the system to change the policy.

Maybe if everyone realized they were paying twice as much for sugar, or that a few guys in suits are making bank with their exclusive trading rights to Japan, we'd be able to influence our congress to do something about it. But people just don't care enough, and the ones that do are fooled by a two-dimensional fairy tale about good guys and bad guys that leads to protectionism.

In what I've described so far, I haven't even talked about the play between domestic industries, the conflict over GM crops, or ethanol/biofuels, let alone really delve into the intricacy of the WTO, trade litigation and trade theory. Pretty much, I don't know anything, this is all too complicated for me, and I have no idea how to talk about the world market for wheat since everything is all messed up. If only the WTO would come to my rescue and make it simple. If that could be done before December 10th when my paper is due, that would be awesome.



** The reason why this view is short-sighted is because, on average, developing nations' tariff rates are a lot higher than developed nations' rates. So in the realm of international trade, it's the developed nations who want the playing field leveled. If the government of some small African nation brings up "fair trade", the US would counterpoint with the numerous markets to which the African country has access. That might not seem fair, but the point is that the fair trade argument would actually hurt a small nation. If they put up barriers, the US (and every other nation) would probably put up theirs. If the point is to improve GDP, removing trade is counterproductive.

Oftentimes, people bring up the infant-industry argument, which intuitively is appealing, but realistically falls apart. The appeal is clear: Industries that show promise, but need time to be able to compete with the world market, should be protected. However, neither trade theory nor historical evidence supports the infant-industry argument. Latin-American nations thought they ought to protect their manufacturing industries, according to the research done by Prebisch and Singer. In short, it was a disaster. GDP did not grow. Markets didn't flourish. Their manufacturing industries never took off and labor and capital were misplaced within their markets. How is a government to know which industry will flourish? How will that industry fare if other nations restrict access in retaliation to the protection? How could that industry prevent from relying on that protection and building it into their business models?

Arguments for this kind of protectionism oftentimes point to Japan, how they protected their auto industry. Who's to say they didn't do so to make more profit, and not because the industries truly needed it? Who's to say they wouldn't have recouped early losses with the gains from free trade, specifically the wider market access? Trade theory forces these questions, which then brings to light the possibility that their auto industry would have flourished anyway.

omg..

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i've just made the greatest mix in the world.
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maybe i'll talk about it one day. here it is:

1) New Order - Ceremony (i took this song off the last mix and replaced it with a ted leo song.)
2) Pedro The Lion - Indian Summer
3) Radiohead - Reckoner
4) AmAnSet - Continuous Hit Music [lofi]
5) TV on the Radio - Dirty Whirlwind
6) Badly Drawn Boy - Cause A Rockslide [edit]
7) Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
8) No Age - Everybody's Down
9) Yo La Tengo - Sugarcube
10) The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
11) Sufjan Stevens - Sister
12) The Notwist - Consequence
13) Deerhunter - Hazel St.
14) LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

............. if only these track-listings could convey the awesomeness... let me know if you want one. if you do, i need ur address. email me at chris.rue@gmail.com.

No Age, Weirdo Rippers

Maybe it's that i've been listening to joy division, but No Age sounds like, well, joy division. or at least they want to. the freshness of exploration landed joy division in a place they didn't realize they were in, whereas the kids that are No Age stand firmly in this information age, knowing that no matter how far they escape they're still here. They still use the internet. They have mp3s. I can't help but hear someone else in them, even if they won't admit it. They're a replica of an 80s post punk band. A fine replica.

Well. Okay. They don't sound like joy division, really. I made most of that first paragraph up. But the idea's the same. Rock died somewhere at the turn of the century. Bands like No Age do what they can to revive it, but it's just a time cycle. They sprout, they grow, and then they die, not before pollinating the ground for others to do the same. And the same they become, growing, dying, finding that the counterculture is no longer interested in being anti. instead, it is more inter, obstinately defending the power of we, against all powers and politics and religions. So these rock bands that eventually die spring forth new ones that die, and so on and so forth. There's no forward movement, just a circle. Rock is a ferris wheel, frightening for the little ones and nostalgic for everyone else. We enjoy it as much as we can, and it reminds us that it's okay to ask, to ourselves or to the Man, who the f cares? I want to go on this ferris wheel, no matter how clearly I've overgrown it. Well. As great as that self-freedom is, we have families. We have friends. We have a world to which we are accountable, people, nations, animals and plants. We're not ticking time bombs set to explode at any moment, fragile, dangerous. Not caring isn't cool anymore. It's appreciated as much as fundamental religion. You're free to not care, but don't start imposing that view on me, or anyone else. Keep your rock to yourself.

Maybe there's still room to not care. There's still a pocket of air that's safe to abuse. A messed up family or something. Living off food stamps and getting beat up by gang members. I don't know what it is. Immediate problems need to be more glaring and important than, say, problems in the Darfur or the US Farm Bill. And that's not hard to achieve, since the injustices closer in physical and, more importantly, emotional proximity to us appear bigger than they really are. So look at that kid in the suburbs who happens to hate life. He hates his parents, his school and himself. The Darfur? He hates that too. Burma? He is the monk, beaten by some societal force that tells him he sucks. The state of the world doesn't urge him to get over himself, but instead reaffirms his need to screw it all. He picks up a guitar. He turns up his amp. He finds refuge in the noise, a kind of demon that whispers in his ear, through the distortion and noise, that nothing matters. So he makes a song that says, lyrically and musically, nothing matters. And it rings true to a generation. The problem is, that generation has long gone. We're not so angry anymore.

Or maybe it's not anger, just a sort of self-obsession. America's not short on that. In fact, nobody is. Some cultures may appear more community centered, but I think there are selfish bastards everywhere. I get the point though, that America is especially self-obsessed. Since we have the means, we go to amazing lengths to preserve ourselves. It rings at least a little bit true for rich people everywhere, but the 21st century America is a hotbed for such people. The reaction against such obsession is just more of the same. It's the idiot protesters who trashed all the Starbucks cafes in Seattle. It's the World Social Forum. It's No Age. It's a big F you to any teenager who hangs out at shopping malls, plays on the football team or sips five dollar mochaccinos. It doesn't care about others' feelings, or the fact that they're no better for seeing the phoniness and not doing anything about it other than complaining. It doesn't care about the Darfur. They don't call themselves monks.

So what's No Age's tragedy? If I could hear an intelligible lyric I'd be able to say. But since I can't, I'll just have to say, suburban teenage angst, drug use, and no babes.

The spirit of angst that makes such music, while debatably dead, does indeed make awesome music. So hey. No Age rocks. And they don't overstep their artistry; each song is short and to the point. They still wail a big f you to the Man, even if that's no longer our anthem. Should they mature, they'd lose whatever freshness they have. If they can become more themselves, more focused, more ridiculous, then maybe they'll be great. It might not be a healthy path into themselves, but it will be enjoyable for listeners until the next cool band sprouts from underneath them. But here in the year 2007, with Sufjan selling out baroque orchestra shows in NYC, maybe we won't even care. Talk about underground.

gas!

I type with one hand. The other is rubbing my tummy, which hurts on account of gas. Gas is debilitating. It slows me down.

What if, instead of tear gas, riot police somehow infected people with gaseous stomachs. That would make the rioters go home and drink some alka seltzer. It would also give those people something to talk about later, other than the evils of whatever they were protesting.

So, gas. What else. I'm listening to a mix I made for a fellow student in my department. Actually he is a phd student, married and much more mature than I am. Most of my music is pretty immature. So we'll see how he likes it. As it goes, the mix has 21 killer tracks on it, most of which are less than two minutes long. Instead of loading the mix with my favorite songs, I've decided to make the whole album enjoyable (hopefully) and complete. Here's my thoughts as I put this mix together:

- It's kind of odd to put, as the first track, an actual first track. The problem is, first tracks make good first tracks, whether on the original album or in a mix. What I've found to my liking is a short and sweet attention-getter, not something hyperactive but something nice-sounding enough to start the album off on a good foot. I kicked this album off with Ceremony, as covered by New Order. (a radiohead cover wouldn't have been bad either)

- I wanted this mix to be a little more mature than my other ones, so that my friend won't think I'm just that guy who listens to weird music, who isn't even in the Ag Econ program (we aren't in any classes together). So the real cornerstone of the mix is "Lover, You Should've Come Over" by Jeff Buckley. Truly a great song, and classy. But throwing in the best song after the intro didn't feel right to me, so i put in two filler songs. These kind ride the wave of Ceremony and land at Lover in a more coherent sense, at least compared to putting the two songs back to back. Those songs are: Track One off Sufjan's Illinoise album, and "My Roots Are Strong And Deep" by The Microphones. Each song is about two minutes long and solid in their own right.

- After "Lover" is another filler - At Last by Neko Case. This short one provides a kind of buffer before the fun, faster section. It's not sad sounding; if anything, it is triumphant. While "Lover" is kind of a downer, "At Last" serves as assurance even in the gravest times.

- The next three songs are fast and happy sounding. Some Feist, some Futureheads, some National (or, some The National?). I probably put these songs on every mix.

- The post fast-section-song is pretty important. Really I had two songs that could have served this function, so I ended up just putting them back to back. The first, Vampiring Again by Califone, is very chill and very perfect after a fast song. It doesn't feel 5 minutes long. In fact, it could be 10 minutes long and it wouldn't feel long. The next is Wilco's Forget the Flowers. It's not my favorite off their album but I think my friend will appreciate how endearing it is. It's a song that will make people say, "Hey, country's not bad!"

I think people like country more than they realize, and that really a lot of music is headed more towards folk as a form of storytelling and expression, as opposed to rock and roll. It's funny. Nas said Hip Hop was dead. Sufjan said Rock was dead. What's taking their place seems very clear. It's Andre 3000. It's... Sufjan Stevens. Ha. Artists, after they "make it", seem to want to push the envelope and reach a new frontier. The irony is that these new frontiers aren't new at all. America's the astronaut walking on the moon. America's the cowboy riding off in the sunset. So in space, signals and meaning get lost, and what's left is something ancient and primitive, or lifeless like techno beats and synthesizers. The opposite happens out West. In Americana, meaning is treasured like a pearl. You can hold it; it is self contained. It's the song. The album doesn't add up to more than the sum of each song; there is no sum. Each song has immense value and meaning, and since science and space strips us of that, we eat it up like candy. We know the getting of the experience is cheap. We know the artist's wasn't our journey. But we need something familiar to remind us that our experiences are meaningful, even if our intellect tells us otherwise. So the song as a story and the guitar as our guide. "Forget the Flowers" it is.

- This is where the mix goes kind of downhill. Boy With A Coin, Iron and Wine. I kind of just threw it in there, hoping it would fit. If it doesn't, I hope the cool afro-beats will keep my friend occupied. Next is Damien Jurado's Desert. I have no idea why this is here. My friend said he appreciated good lyrics. There you go. God... there must be something better. Oh well.

- Maple Leaves, Jens Lekman. This has been on every mix. The song has gotten so old and my friend wouldn't even get the Mark E. Smith lyric (i apparently don't get it either - thought it was park e smith), or probably any of the lyrics, since they're so irreverent. But I'm short on fast happy songs, so until something better comes along I'll stick with this.

- The home stretch... ok, the next was a late addition, since there wasn't enough happiness on the album. So, The Underdog by Spoon. I have no idea what it's about, and I'm not that crazy about it. Oh well. It fits. Then, Slow Show by The National. This band has a knack for catchy songs that seem more meaningful than they probably are. I say that because I've seen them live twice, and they weren't really that impressive to me. Live, the catchiness of the songs seemed more effective than their power, and there isn't any kind of personable or intimate spin they could have given them. That tells me that the songs don't come from the heart, and they don't come from some bodily urge to rock (like, anything off Arcade Fire's Funeral). So, The National ends up being perfect mix fodder. Not too emo, not too strong, these songs have no context.

- Hazel St., Deerhunter. Every one of my mixes is the same. But this song really is awesome. I almost didn't put it on since Deerhunter is just a bunch of kids, and my friend is probably like 30, and married and all that. He probably won't like them, but if by chance he does, then he is awesome.

- Finally another filler. Tape Hiss Orchid, Deerhunter. Ok... putting two songs back to back that, on the original cd, are actually back to back is kind of weird. I do this sometimes. But really, they're back to back for a reason a lot of times, and in this case it just makes sense. The preceding songs on the mix are force-fed and you'd want a natural break after Deerhunter's madness. Plus, what if my friend ends up liking this track?! It opens up the possibilities to so many great artists: Eno, Colleen, Sweet Trip, Air, Tim Hecker.... Atlas Sound? lol.

- Back for more Neko. Star Witness. what a nice song! after that is Faust Arp, intended to be something of a filler on Radiohead's In Rainbows. It darkens things up before Priests and Paramedics by Pedro the Lion. I didn't want to end the album on a depressing note (my friend is a Christian) so I threw in The Postman by AmAnSet, which sounds like a mellower version of the Pedro song.

So there it is. The ultimate 21 song intro to indie folk and stuffs mix.

what do you think?

edit: do you want one?

1) New Order - Ceremony
2) Sufjan Stevens - Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, IL
3) The Microphones - My Roots Are Strong And Deep
4) Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should've Come Over
5) Neko Case - At Last
6) Feist - I Feel It All
7) The Futureheads - Meantime
8) The National - Apartment Story
9) Califone - Vampiring Again
10) Wilco - Forget The Flowers
11) Iron and Wine - Boy With A Coin
12) Damien Jurado - Desert
13) Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves (7" Version)
14) Spoon - The Underdog
15) The National - Slow Show
16) Deerhunter - Hazel St.
17) Deerhunter - Tape Hiss Orchid
18) Neko Case - Star Witness
19) Radiohead - Faust Arp
20) Pedro the Lion - Priests And Paramedics
21) The American Analog Set - The Postman

my best friend is my blog

i have nothing to do tonight, which normally is a welcome reprieve from my normal routine: studying, eating, sleeping, watching tv. wait. why is that a welcome reprieve. oh. well usually i'm doing my normal routine with other people, minus the sleeping. so spending time alone is a welcome reprieve, i mean to say.

but there's a difference between spending time alone because you're tired, or you need to detox or whatever, and the much more unfortunate case of spending time alone because your best friend is your blog. today, after i watched the indians get slaughtered by the red sox, i took a pity nap, woke up and eat dinner, and went into my room to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. this would be okay if it wasn't 7:30pm. what does a guy do with 6 hours to himself?

but moving on, and speaking of moving on: i've decided to take these two words out of my vocabulary when having meaningful conversations: nevermind, and whatever. when i used to say "nevermind", it usually meant that i was going to say something stupid, unwise, or just mean. but i realize that if i think stupid, unwise or mean thoughts, then those descriptions probably fit me, and that should be conveyed honestly to other people. so i've decided to take that word (or more correctly, phrase - never mind) out of my vocabulary. whatever, i mostly just use that as a transition in conversation, sometimes out of frustration and sometimes not. but people interpret it as self-centered resignation or teenage elitism. so, goodbye whatever. goodbye nevermind.

ok. when i decided to write a new post right now i wanted to talk about music and an interesting trend i've been noticing. i'm still deciding whether to just bring it up randomly. is this annoying for people? to be so far inside my head, describing every thought? i'll bring the music thing up another day. i just thought of something else.

when people say or type sentences in the form "i'm ____, gerund ____", i can only think of one thing: lolcats. ur in my head, describing my thoughts. im on the compy, blogging bout stupid things. actually, the general idea of... gosh am i an idiot? the general idea of noticing something and relating it to something else is really interesting. yes, i am an idiot - that last sentence completely butchered the idea i was trying to convey. what i mean is, when i look at people's behavior, i try to reduce their actions in variables and parameters, since that's what i look at all day in my econ classes. or if you're a psych major, you look at people and fit their behavior in the patterns and trends you study. or, more interestingly, a writer, you see the world differently and it's all relative to what you think about, look at or study.

i normally find this "style" of writing really annoying. it seems gimmicky and obnoxious. next time i will just talk about music. next time you won't be in my head.

not my day

it's not easy for a day like today to suck as bad as it has. at least given the way i go about these few more days before grad school starts. i wake up whenever i want, i grab some breakfast and then get on the computer. then i think about lunch, eat lunch, then go on the computer. random activities like playing the guitar, reading a book, or hanging out with my parents are interspersed throughout the day. but pretty much i just do whatever i want.

but today i woke up feeling pretty blue. so blue in fact that the rest of this post will be in blue font. it is a dark blue i feel, so with a dark blue font i will continue. so i woke up, a little bit past the time when it'd make sense to eat breakfast but before the time normal people eat lunch. i stayed in bed and finished the rest of Naked by David Sedaris, which is mostly a great book, but ended with a whimper. i was sad about that and all of that negative energy must have rushed into my bowels. because then i had major diarrhea which has lasted throughout the day.

my first bout of the runs forced me out of bed and ruined any semblance of a morning routine that i had developed these past few weeks. normally i'd get on the computer and check my email, a few websites and sign on all with a few keystrokes. i would mean to browse a thing or two here and there, but i'd end up staying there for a good half hour, doing next to nothing. there's this illusion of productivity while i'm at a computer, but the reality is i was probably more productive today, clearing out my system of bile and poop, than i would be checking the latest tech crap or reading blogs or participating in inane chat. but... wasting time at the computer is what i'm used to, and evidently what i'd choose to do with the beginning of my day if i didn't have a job, school, or any real responsibility.

so today i was in the bathroom for most of the morning, which isn't uncommon for me at all. i used to think having daily stomach pangs of varying degrees of pain was totally normal. it was normal for me to be hunched over on the can with what felt like my intestines pouring out of me. and it was normal for that to happen on average twice a week. one time in the church bathroom, i thought that i would surely die. i must have passed twelve litres of life fluids and i was sure my heart would explode under the duress from my body's cry of pain. i wondered how long it would take for someone to find me. i guestimated it would take a few weeks. the smell of feces would probably overwhelm the smell of a rotting corpse, and since the church bathroom always smelled like poop anyway, people would think i was passing some kimchi jigae or something. usually the extended thoughts on death-by-diarrhea would help pass the time, and before i knew it the pain was gone, and i'd realize i had been sitting on the toilet for a good hour since anything last came out of me. alive and butt-sore, i felt no sense of relief. just tiredness and insecurity - the next bout of diarrhea could be just around the corner. it was useless to prepare for it, and useless to fight it. i'd pull up my pants, flush, wash hands, and waddle out of the bathroom, knowing it hadn't seen the last of me.

today was nothing like that, except for my reoccurring visits to different bathrooms throughout the house. i usually spare my parents bathroom mostly because the toilet is fully exposed to the rest of the room. i'd never take a shower there either unless i had time to blast burning hot water to steam up the glass door that anyone, upon entering the doorless bathroom, could see. i mostly just stuck to my bathroom, defecating, reading, and then wiping with fewer and fewer squares so as to save toilet paper. it turns out my mom buys quintuple ply toilet paper, so really i only need one square to wipe and still protect my dainty fingers. but i use two, cuz using one would just be really weird.

other than my stomach problems, my day was... well, sad. sad and unfortunate. i thought about lunch and decided on stopping by Borders before i pick up a burger at in n out. i almost bought another Sedaris memoir, but something about that seemed like a trap. was it all just the same stuff, told differently? more elaboration on a story he'd already told me? who knows. i guess i won't until i befriend someone well enough who wouldn't mind me borrowing his other books. so i decided on a book that my small circle of friends seems to be reading - pilgrim at tinker creek by Annie Dillard. it's described, from my friend (actually from me, guessing what it could mean, and my friend affirming that guess) as a modern-day Walden, without the ridiculous flowery language. being that i'm going to uc davis, a school known for environmental and agricultural studies, and that my major is agricultural and resource economics, and being that i bought a mini plant for my room that i tend to neglect, i decided to embrace the gardening/ecology section of Borders and pick up a copy.

they carried two copies of the book, both of which had mangled spines. maybe some nature-loving fellow came in and read a chapter or two, switching off between books each time he/she came in. people like that probably don't care much for book preservation. they're probably the types that fold the book in two when they read, then put the book in their back pocket when they had read enough. as cool as that seems, i like my new books relatively untouched and unread by others. that way i could say that it's mine, and when i read it the words would be mine and the themes and messages would all be for me. even time i devote to reading is really just time devoted to me - i can't imagine being useful to anyone else while i'm reading. i can't make rice, look up directions online, or hold a conversation. i guess reading as a form of self-improvement is okay, even though it's totally selfish. if someone finds me reading, they don't think of me as lazy so much as intelligent, interesting, something like that. there's a peace to that - the same peace that people take for granted during a (normal) bowel movement. if you're on the john, nobody's going to harass you saying that you need to be somewhere else. really, you're doing the most important thing you could do at the time, and no one else can say anything. reading a book is a less powerful activity, but it has similar benefits, if the reader's goal is to get by doing something enjoyable without harassment from the people.

i bought the book then headed over to in n out, which wasn't the closest fast food restaurant, but had become my favorite. the burgers were fresh and the flexibility of their menu allowed me to order them "animal style", which means that they add some delicious things to the burger. i haven't quite figured out what those things are. but after today i've definitely become a bit more suspicious. as the story goes, i pull up to the in n out drive-through, which is backed up by other hardworking american patrons who, like me, appreciate the fresh ingredients and friendly faced workers. i do like i always do, ordering a number one with no cheese, my burger animal style, with a coke. $5.10 at the window. i pull up, listening to a sufjan-inspired band, St. Vincent. and by listening i mean punching the track-forward button on my steering wheel after each annoying five second intro to each ridiculous "song". there are a few keepers on the album, but mostly the girl can't think of a melody if her life depended on it, and her singing is stylized in a way that makes you want to squint your eyes and shake your head, or just end your life. i settle on a quiet ballad and turn the music down as i hand my credit card to the woman at the first window. no hello? no thank you? no nothing? maybe she was having a bad day. no person can be bouncy and friendly every day. grace. i will give grace. i pull up to the next window and the jolly lady hands me my coke and my mysteriously animal stylized burger and fries. i don't even check the back to see if it's right - these guys never let me down.

i pull up to my house and unload the carton of fries as i turn the tv on. something catches my eye but i'm too busy looking for "law and order" or some variation of it - i mean, criminal intent or special victims unit, not cold case or the closer or any of those other jokes of detective/courtroom shows. i carefully extract the burger and then say a prayer of thanks to the God who provides beautiful, piping hot food for just 5 bucks. as i reach down for a fry, something small and black draws my attention. i pick it up hoping its just a stray hair. and thats exactly what it was. a stray pubic hair. black and curly and laying under two fries i had just put in my mouth.

a more proactive person would immediately spit out the fries, get pissed off and then drive the ten minutes back to in n out to raze the place in hellfire, then find the pervert worker, probably that unfriendly girl at the first window, and make her eat a few fries covered in ketchup and pubes. the manager would come out apologizing like crazy, offering me free food for life. going back would have been the smart thing to do. but instead i just kept eating. i ate my burger and ate all the fries, wondering what the hell i was actually eating, what disgusting particles were in my otherwise delicious food. i tried not to think about it, because when i did there was little to no accident about it. how could a pubic hair "accidentally" fall into my fries? was the guy that chopped the fresh potatoes doing it in the nude? the inevitable truth was that someone put it there, but i pushed it out of my head. after i finished my meal, i couldn't help but feel a little sick. the fries were actually delicious, but still i felt used. i felt like the butt of a joke that some 14 year old in n out punk is laughing at right now.

but then i realized the feeling was just my diarrhea coming back again. whatever entered my body has or will surely pass through to a watery grave.

today is not my day. a pall of sadness rests over me, a sheer veil that darkens the otherwise beautiful California sky.

and later i'll be off to a bbq to schmooze with people in my department. i'm one of the new guys. it saddens me further that they'll be meeting a kid, ravaged by stomach problems, by pubic hair, by life itself. i will bring my sadness with me. i will be the rain that forces everyone inside. where we can sit and talk over coffee. where we can listen to music or read pilgrim at tinker creek.

steno notepads are in!

there's this other story sitting right in the middle of my discovery of steno notepads. sigh.

i went to best buy to get CD-Rs for a few mixes i'm making. while i was there, i perused the DVD section, which mostly consisted of new releases and overpriced HBO series...es....serieses. and then i found myself in the science fiction/fantasy section, which was pretty embarrassing because it was full of naruto episodes and other typical shows that asians tend to love. but on my way to the end of the aisle i stumbled upon a goldmine. well not really a goldmine, but a sweet movie that i haven't seen in ages, but i'd been wanting to revisit: DARK CITY.

for those of you who don't know anything about this movie, it's pretty much the cooler, less pretentious version of The Matrix, without the insane budget and bullet-time special effects. i liken the dark city/matrix comparison to Glory as the predecessor to Braveheart. Dark City is a great movie that's overshadowed by it's stylish, more ambitious successor. anyway, it was only 6 bucks so i bought it, and i just watched it. for those of you who are curious, it's about a guy who wakes up in the middle of the night to find the entire city asleep. actually its pretty complicated so i'll just say, he ends up being like neo in the matrix. oh - and keifer sutherland is in the movie, except he plays a really creepy doctor. but there is one scene where he's holding a gun to the main character, and he totally turns into jack bauer in those 10 seconds.

anyway. the real story is.... well i kind of forgot what it was until i reread the title of this post. it's totally uninteresting. i went to office max after best buy to get some school supplies. actually i spent like an hour in office max, debating whether a notebook is more appropriate, or a binder of filler paper, or regular folders verses, again, a binder... whatever. the point is, i stumbled upon these notebook-like things called steno notebooks. i had no idea they were, so i used my iphone to wiki it, and even wikipedia had no idea what they were. so i bought a pack. essentially they are notepads, except they have a vertical line that goes down the middle of each page. they came in a pack of four, and they are totally cool. everyone jump on board.

also, i am very into running these days. i run around my development, around a man-made lake and back. it's quite beautiful, and even last week as i was running i saw a white crane perched on a fence. i was running in that direction but the crane didn't move, not until i was just a few steps away. when i got too close it spread its long wings and glided to the other side of the lake. i kept watching as a ran, which meant i could have easily ran straight into the lake, but it totally captured my attention. i hadn't seen a crane before, and i haven't seen one since. maybe i'll get lucky again one of these days.

also, since i'm into running, but i'm not into my hair bobbing up and down and getting in my eyes, i bought sweatbands. i bought a white one and a navy blue one, but i wasn't satisfied.... so i searched on amazon.com and found all these cool retro headbands and wristbands. i plan on buying them once i get a job. i could probably buy them now since they're only like $2.50 but... i am a man of self control and restraint. anyway, sweatbands, they're making a comeback. get on board the stenograph and sweatband train.

i got this from google images:
this guy is a headband model, and the url of the image suggests he goes to MIT. i don't know why, but that in itself is funny to me. anyway, i would look like him if he were korean, running, and wore a different headband.

here is a picture of a steno notepad:
as you can see they are pretty normal and boring. and as we all know, normal+boring = extremely cool.

and just to top it off, a picture that gives you an idea of what Dark City is like.
looks cooool huh. ok. that is all. goodnite!

i have an iphone!

and my life is still the same. i try to use it as much as i can, and the interface is really cool and intuitive. but in the end, it's still a phone, and still nobody calls me. on top of that, i barely leave the house so i can't take advantage of the (slow) EDGE network. i've debated for a while if i should get one, but now that i have one i can't really beat myself up, cuz it was a pretty good buy. especially when i compare it to the $400.00 parking pass that's sitting next to it on my desk right now. $400 for a little spot on the top of some parking deck next to a field of cows. oh well.

i had a pretty good scruffy look going for a while, but i shaved and got a haircut so i look like a 15 year old again. just in time for my ag econ orientation tomorrow. should i play it cool and just go to stuff i find interesting, or should i be fully engaged, meet people and smile a lot? i guess we will see.

i went to this church in davis last sunday called University Covenant Church. it was one of those big churches with the big screens on the walls. it did have a very homey feel to it, and the people didn't seem very cool or hip. you could tell because even though they had all this multimedia stuff going on, most of it was pretty shoddy and nobody seemed to care. anyway, it was an enjoyable service and i'm glad i went. buuuutttt...

their worship time really got me thinking. "worship time" as in singing time. everyone was pretty much standing there, looking at the screens or looking at the very polished band. i guess i just thought that the singing didn't really fit in with the rest of the service. i mean... what's the point of singing if the whole congregation is going to just stand there. was it supposed to be an offering of celebration? some outpouring of their hearts? in human terms, i know boyfriends sing songs to their girlfriend and stuff like that, but they don't do it every week on command. and i know it is a command to sing to the Lord. but why at sunday services?

and then i thought - what is the most valuable aspect of a sunday service? yeah, singing, community, prayer, stuff like that... but i think the distinguishing thing is the sermon. which is important because it's not every day that you get to hear an expert's take on a Bible passage that can be confusing, misunderstood or just understated. so, wouldn't it be awesome for an alternate service to kind of "cut the fat" and go straight for what's really important? like, not even a sermon but more like a biblical scholar doing his bible study out loud. after all, the most memorable moments of teaching for me weren't from sermons or group bible studies, but from someone explaining the bible in a way that made me realize that it's alive. and, i bet people can learn how to do their own in depth studies if they hear/see someone else doing it effectively.

i say alternate service because it'd probably be really boring for a lot of people. i went to a service like this in florida (r.c. sproul's church) with my friends, and more than half of them fell asleep. but i do think it would work, maybe if it's less formal than i proposed. kind of like how muslims get together by the pillars of the mosque to learn from a quranic scholar. its working for them - look at all the muslims willing to die for their faith!

just kidding. and i don't know why i'm going on and on about this idea. maybe just thinking out loud. i should reward those of you who have made it this far in the post. i will end with a riddle, but i will not make a new paragraph for it in case someone tries to skip down to the bottom. also, i will add another paragraph of nonsense at the bottom to further prevent skippers. anyway, here it goes - what two coins do you need to make 30 cents, one of them is not a nickel. i got this one from an episode of scrubs. i guess u can google the answer cuz its pretty easy and common.

also i didn't know how to spell nickel so i had to google it. i had to googel it. lol! goo gel. anyway thats what nickel is. nic kel. cuz you'd think it would be nickle but it's not. i used to get pissed off at how stupid the english language is when there were spelling quizzes back in the day. i remember not spelling the word "dollar" correctly, and throwing a tantrum afterwards, complaining that it wasn't fair for a word to be pronounced "doller" yet be spelled with an a. i guess i'm always blaming something else.

delirious, cutting edge, disc 2, track 12. and crowder, can you hear us, track 8.

i have two minor obsessions that relate to one another in opposite ways. one of them is bravo's hit tv show, top chef. it's amazing to see these very human chefs, full of neuroses and quirks, create beautiful food. their creations probably taste very good too, but i won't know until sometime in the future, when we can hook ourselves up to the tv and eat the food they make. anyway, i haven't seen last week's episode, so i've been watching a lot of tv to hopefully catch a rerun. i've seen just about every other top chef episode like 10 times each, so hopefully this newer episode will be in heavy rotation as well.

i realize now that mentioning top chef as one of my obsessions is pretty boring and meaningless, except in how it relates (or does not relate) to my other obsession: bread and butter. i think i've always been into not-impressive food like wendy's spicy chicken sandwich and Stouffer's french bread pizza, but i think my tastes have greatly downgraded. so while i'm watching marathons of top chef, what with their capriccios and tuna tartars, i'm munching on a loaf of bread and butter. so now, if i'm asked what my favorite food is, i don't have to think of the coolest thing i've eaten recently. because nothing's better than bread and butter! woooo slant rime.

*********end normal entry*********

i had this weird thought the other day. how we use words to encapsulate a thing or idea for our own convenience/sanity/control, but really those words don't cut it. the universe is not the universe. when we use that word, universe, many things come to mind, like an image of a bunch of galaxies or something, or just empty space, but even the images that word evokes doesn't come close to what the real universe is. so, the universe is not the universe. even our own world is a mystery to the brightest scientists, and the average person doesn't really know much about it. so the world is not the world. and if you think about it, it goes on and on. like, people you know, you don't really know exactly what they're thinking or what they're feeling. you don't know what it tastes like for them when they eat cheese, so what you think you are is not you, and i am not me, because i don't even know me very well sometimes.

and is it a western thing to demand a meaning for everything, to be able to sum it all up in one sentence, or one phrase or just one word? or is it a human thing. on a side note. i wonder what it will be like once i am fully human. i'm not talking about a guy that has a job and pays bills and has a family. i guess i'm talking about heaven. but back to the original train of thought. maybe thats why novels are as long as they are. just one word isn't enough to say what you really want to. or, in poetry, when we all know that the words represent the bigger, truer ideas, and so we know that when they say the world they mean The World and so we don't fully understand.

i S2 cali

but before i talk about cali (or maybe this does apply) i just want to say that there is an annoying delay in this text box. when i was in new york, the delay was incredible. i would type entire sentences before seeing them pop up on the screen. but here in cali, the delay is negligible. what a difference california makes!

i'm staying with dave, sleeping in his bed with him. two pretty annoying things - he assembled his bed wrong, so a two inch board above the headboard juts out towards the bed. i've been leaning against it and it really hurts. the second annoying thing is that i woke up to a guy revving his autobike right outside our window. i wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but he is probably a pretty scary dude.

and the third annoying thing is that i'm about to go to the beach, and i don't have my swim suit. dave offered his oversized trunks, with the warning that they fell off of him in the ocean once. and the fourth thing is that staf told her friends that they should hug me and ask me to sing them my songs once we get to the beach. life's a beach!

i was going to add more annoying things, like dave's sign on/sign off aim theme on his new compy. but i'm a pretty chill person.

one example of how chill i am was yesterday, when i went to dave's church, which he described as a simple church. it was like a small group, and it was really laid back. everything was going great until the end, when the pastor told us to embrace one another, wait for God's voice, and speak words of encouragement to the other person. what a day to visit. but actually the pastor hugged me and told me things i think i needed to hear. so it was actually pretty cool! i guess that's not an example of how chill i am. but i'm getting there.

anyway, cali is pretty awesome so far. i've been hanging out with dave, staf and dave's roommate warren. he's a musician. he's a big friendly dude and he took me around yesterday. actually i went with him to his accountability group, so him, billy and i shared our lives and sins and stuff. thats how i will roll in california - randomly (recklessly?) transparent. so today, beach, tomorrow sf and then who knows.

buy

more thoughts on new york

- there are no fat people in new york! did anyone else notice that?

- ummmm new york is cool.

anyway, i've been hanging out with my cousin in jersey for the past few days with my brother, and my cousin's got these two adorable kids. rachel is 4 years old, and she's probably the smartest most energetic person in the world. what's awesome about her is that she still likes me even though i do absolutely no fun stuff with her. then there's caleb, who is about to turn 2 but is almost the same size as rachel. i think he's going to be a professional athlete or body builder. he's super cute too, and he does everything rachel does. sometimes i want to tell him - no, be your own person, caleb! but then he's at the age where he actually understands what people say, so i don't want to confuse him. caleb is the cutest boy in the world.

aside from playing with the kids, i've been spending time with my bro lately. sometimes hanging out with him is more than i can handle, but it's been really cool seeing him these past few days. first of all, and most selfishly, he's great with kids so he deflects attention away from me and my awkwardness when the little ones are around. but also it's been fun spending time with him before he goes to africa for a year.

one thing he likes to do when we hang out is tell me about how much i suck. talking to my brother is like taking painful medicine sometimes. actually, it's more like taking painful medicine all the time, whether you're healthy or sick. or rather, it's like being prescribed painful medicine by a doctor who is convinced that you're sick all the time, when really that couldn't be true because you're just as healthy as everyone else and they don't take medicine and they're still alive. but anyway, i was a little bit sick, and i've been doing some moderately painful introspection lately. i'm resolved to at least get on the path of healthy selflessness, away from the black-hole syndrome that pops up now and again.

i'm excited to see staf and pdave when i go out to cali. and then i'll be living with mom and dad all year. my goal for that is to not be such a baby, and for me to be able to hold an articulate conversation with my dad without getting frustrated that he doesn't understand me. i guess those two goals are all one goal, to just grow up.

speaking of not being a baby... john apparently told mom that i'm really awkward around babies. to which she replied, "Chris Himself is a baby!" :*(

anyway i should sleep soon. because rachel and caleb will surely be trying to wake john and me up tomorrow early in the morning. -_________-

edit:
omg... i completely forgot about my rwc experience. it was mostly okay but... also very weird. i got there a little late, so the worship time was almost ending. i sat between my friends, mike and dave (this detail is important), and then the main pastor introduced the guest speaker for the day. the guest pastor talked about how his favorite hobby was making out with his wife and that we should all look at his wife because his wife is hot. later in his sermon, he said "i would not slit my son's jugular for any of you. i mean, look at him. he's hot." his son is 18 months old. [out of context... but still, weird in any case]

he would go on to preach a good, normal sermon, but before that he did something out of the ordinary, and pretty much out of the blue. he asked us to pray after he read the bible passage while putting our hand on our neighbor's chest. now, some pastors will instruct the congregates to hold hands or put a hand on each others' shoulders if we feel comfortable. but this was ridiculous! everyone started giggling, and he said, "oh, not for anyone of the opposite gender of course." but even if two girls sat next to each other.... isn't that still really inappropriate?

but to end this long story, i was sitting in between two guys so i just crossed my arms and put both my hands on my chest. i didn't want them squeezing my little moobies during a sacred time of prayer. but i did have my eyes closed - i wonder what everyone else did, especially the girls. i mean. i don't actually wonder what they did. but it does make one wonder what the heck that pastor was thinking.

thoughts on new york

i've been in new york for the past few days, and i have a few thoughts and observations that are probably more self-revealing than relevant to the actual city. but here we go:

- everything is expensive, especially apartments. my friend is living in a room about the size of a folded out futon. i know it's the size of a futon because when we folded out his futon, there was literally no space left for anything.

- people need to make money because everything is expensive. i wonder how christians live in the city, since you pretty much have to worship money in order to live here. seriously, if your priorities are not on your job and making money, i can't imagine surviving here for very long.

- i am totally a tourist. taking the subway is such an experience for me. and everywhere i go, i need to know what part of town i'm in and what kind of people hang out there and such. i guess this is an observation about myself, and not the city. oh well.

- a more specific observation - when i was taking the bus here from philly, i saw a bunch of pidgins eating some stuff on the sidewalk. and i looked closer, and next to the mob was a dead pidgin, with its guts everywhere. but his fellow pidgins were too busy surviving to care. and i thought - that is totally what new york is like!! obviously the city still scares me.

- getting around in the northeast is so simple. trains, planes and automobiles. except, not planes, and buses instead of automobiles.

- one out of every thousand or so people is crazy, and you probably see about 5000 people a day. all of these numbers are made up.

- one out of every ten tourists talks about the above "fact". i know this because a couple sat down across from me and my friend at a diner and had the same exact conversation about the crazies in new york, with the same exact statistics.

- the chances of seeing someone you know if you're walking around is 100%, especially people you haven't talked to in a million years.

- this list is getting really boring and stupid.

i totally understand why new york is such a lonely place. there are so many people here, to the point where everybody is nobody. people live their own lives, which here is so demanding already. but given all this, new york is still a million times better than anywhere in the south. what little 5 is in atlanta is blocks of hipster living in new york. in fact, every little spot in atlanta doesn't compare to their counterparts in new york.

but then again, nobody in atlanta pays 900 bucks for a closet.

redemption gone wrong

staf told me that my blog should be more lighthearted. so as a birthday present to her, here is a lighthearted entry!

i think one of the most painful things to experience is when christians try to redeem a part of secular culture, but fail miserably. christian rock is the first thing that comes to mind, what with CCM and koo chung and youth group praise teams. but i'm not going to talk about worship bands, even though a lot of them try very hard to sound like U2. then there's stuff like sports, and the countless examples of youth group basketball tournaments turning into a bedlam of 5'6" korean gangsters, 6'4" white/black ringers and a few on-the-court death threats. music and sports are great topics, but i want to look at more subtle areas of culture and society. so i'll start with humor.

i was in an officers meeting in my youth group, which were held in my pastor's small office. we were waiting for him to come, so one of us poked around his bookshelf and found a small white book called "the christian book of clean jokes". we all burst out laughing as he walked in, and my pastor got really pissed and the whole meeting was awkward cuz of that.

anyway, there are better examples of how christians fail to redeem comedy. here are some horrible xian jokes:

Q: what books of the bible do you read for direction?
A: Luke! Obadaiah!

Q: what book of the bible serves as an endorsement?
A: Habakuk (pronounced, in a thick korean accent, "have a coke")

i can't think of any other ones. which is surprising since i watched a whole dvd of christian comedians a few months ago with my family group. i must have blocked it out of my memory.

anyway, related to humor, the song and dance is an aspect of secular entertainment that christians desperately try to redeem. but the examples of failed redemption are endless. one blatant example is when, at my youth group's retreat, we would have a song and dance that would describe the rules. each year got exponentially more ridiculous, to the point where they had to stop the tradition. that year, a group of girls, all wearing low-cut white shirts, pranced around singing modified lyrics to an N'Sync song. all i remember was their "band's" name - N'Chink. needless to say, that was a failure of redemption at its worst.

but i will go on. in college, i found that the most painful thing to sit through a body-worship or christian dance routine that, from the start, was destined to fail. i wish i had footage from this past AMI revolution but these soldiers will have to do. i know everyone is well-intentioned and that probably a few people in the congregation are blessed by their awkward movements or muscle-strained smiles. but usually it's more like watching a child's piano recital. you're just so nervous that they're going to mess up, that you can't enjoy a thing. i have to look away and think about something else. and to be fair, it's mostly because the people that are watching don't know what to do with themselves. it's awkward when the performers' energy level is a few stratospheres higher than everyone else. so there's no hootin' and hollering. just blank stares. except for me - i'm usually looking down, or trying to make eye contact with someone else who looks like they're in pain.

i used to think that redemption was the way to go, and i still think that redeeming society and culture can do a lot for the Kingdom. but over the years, i've seen so many failed attempts. it's sad when events are geared towards performance, events that hinge on the redemption of the secular, end up looking like a clumsy attempt at preaching salvation. is it trying to do too much with too little - too little creativity, talent, understanding of society... or is it that we're so tethered by an orthodoxy that everything has to have a cheezy jesus spin when we know we can say something more meaningful in a more creative way?

that link was a joke. habajoke. but if you are a church leader and you're reading this, take heed - redemption gone wrong is more painful than just letting it be. conceding a few things to the secular world isn't so bad. let's pick our battles wisely.

a new me

aside from the xanga import below, this new blog represents the new me. that is, the post-undergrad, post-atlanta me. now, i am to be a stranger in a strange land, learning the new cali-style life, trying not to get frustrated that i have no friends and no life. i will have to remember that wise adage: "mind the tree. mind the stone. 2 many mind." so, as i move on from xanga, i will move on from the tree, the stone and all else that gets me in my way of... of something. jesus i guess.

but really, i forgot my xanga password and i can't log in anymore. so here's my new blog. please enjoy.

my teenage feelings

i'd like to share with the world a song that is awesome. it's called that teenage feeling by neko case:

if you haven't given it a listen, or read the lyrics, the song is about someone who can't help but be jaded after a series of short-lived relationships. she admires her friend who can be content chasing teenage feelings while knowing that the love will never last. that leaves the woman confused, doubting whether she can ever make a relationship work, especially now that there's been so many past lovers and past lives she's lived.

i remember liking girls in high school but never having the balls to do anything about it. so, in a completely unhealthy way, i was able to sit safely in the confines of my teenage hopes and feelings, letting them incubate into something perfect. when girls did come, they were short lived. there was the girl who liked me, who danced with me close at homecoming. and then the nice girl i liked who lived far away. they weren't relationships by any means, but they gave me moments that hinted at that teenage feeling. so now, i feel like i have this intuitive understanding of love, but it's mostly just the outcome of years of emotional masturbation and guesswork. and even though i've gone through enough now to know not to believe my feelings, i still do sometimes. so go figure.

but what's the point of this. i guess when i heard this song, i remembered driving by those telephone poles on the way home from school. i remembered the changing seasons, from the harsh winter colds to the dying green weeds. me and my expectations, suffocating under the pressure of my teenage feelings. now, as i'm going through another series of realizations about how imperfect relationships are, i think about how useless those vague warnings that people passed off as advice have become. they would offer their past experiences with phrases like "take it slow" or "no touching". it's frustrating to think that the person who's helped me understand what i'm going through is a woman who doesn't know me at all. and while i'm thankful that she did it in just two minutes and forty two seconds, i'm still annoyed that she did it after the fact.

but how could i blame anyone? maybe it's just hard to really describe what goes on when someone comes of age. after all, that's how the song ends. all she can say is that it's hard. maybe in all the teenage delusions of love, the only thing that it might just be is hard.


************

but really, the awesomeness of this song came to me when i heard the song 1234 by the talented leslie feist. yeah, it's a cool song and it has a cute video. but her writing pales in comparison to neko case. 1234 is about a brokenhearted girl whose teenage hopes of true love failed her, leaving her somewhat bitter. it's a cute song but the only purpose it serves is to be compared to "that teenage feeling", and also to give an excuse to beat someone up, particularly anyone who tries to do the stupid dance whenever it's played.