political rant

I'm trying to define myself politically and having a seriously hard time of it. Part of this is because the definitions out there are, when you actually sit down and look at them, incredibly vague, while part of this is also because I don't know if there actually IS a category for me.

It's really a huge mess when you think about it. For instance, I don't believe in a strong central/federal government at all. On the other hand, what would we do about those things in our lives that do require public funding? This is part of why the Democrats and Republicans chase each others' tails forever in a perpetual stalemate; neither side's views are workable on their own.

A central government with the ability to essentially control the national economy is a bad idea because it restricts individuals and small communities. A total free-market economy is also a bad idea for the same exact reason. Both sides are touted as "the solution" but each only serves to quash the abuses of the other while leaving us open to its own inherent abuses.

The problem with both is that each shifts power from the general public to a small group of people, to either the federal government or to multinational corporations. What's really horrifying is that nowadays I think we have both entities against us.

But hey, what's so wrong about that? Plenty. The problem is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We need checks and balances and we don't inherently have any, for one important reason I'll get to in a moment. The lack of power we as a people have right now is horrifying simply because of the rapid advance of technology. We have weaponry that's practically impossible to defend against, we have satellite imaging that can find virtually anything or anyone anywhere, and we have ways to monitor any and all forms of communication. And this is only the beginning. We have yet to develop the means to actually access the human mind, but we will.

The common response to this usually falls along the lines of "Corporations / the government wouldn't violate our basic rights because they're constitutionally-protected, and also because we'd protest." Neither argument holds any water, ironically because we are a democratic republic. Yes, we have a government, on paper at least, that is run by the people for the people. But if "the people" can be convinced that they do not need certain rights because the government/some multinational corporation will take care of them, then we lose those rights.

And this is exactly the reason I mentioned earlier for why we have a frightening lack of checks and balances at the moment. We are inundated with promises that a particular large institution, be it government or corporate, will "take care of us". And people buy it; I see this on a daily basis. The people I hate dealing with the most in my job are those who think that since they're paying my company to have internet access, we should also be responsible for fixing and maintaining their computers as well.

I've talked to people who honestly believed that I could physically see them somehow (one guy thought that cable boxes had hidden cameras in them). What's absolutely terrifying to me is that these people are totally okay with the idea that a corporation can monitor absolutely everything they do. These people are okay with the thought of having absolutely no privacy so long as they don't have to think for themselves.

The problem of course is that both government and corporate institutions are really trading right now off the whole "we'll take care of you" thing. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say this is all planned and that the overall goal is to make us utterly dependent on the state to pave the way for some sort of awful fascist nightmare. Maybe this is going on on some levels, but I don't think things are coordinated enough for it to be a "conspiracy" of any kind. I think it's going on simply because people are fucking lazy and stupid and they let it go on, and it's good for corporations because it hooks in new customers and makes them new money.

However this is dangerous because if someone in government *should* happen to decide that we need more controls or less rights, we'll have no defense against them. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but if the public is conditioned to believe those in power are supposed to take care of them, they will hand over power, and once that is done, there is no going back. It's arguable that the seeds for this have already been planted.

What can be done about this? About the only thing I can see to do would be to make efforts to start independent, self-run communities which do not need much assistance from the government. If this were to happen at a large enough scale, the power of the government and/or corporations would be reduced dramatically and the people could regain control of their own lives.

Of course, this also assumes that enough people even want to take charge of their lives... and that's not something I'm at all convinced of, but I think the idea is sound enough to try anyway, at least until a better one comes along.

yikes

I lost my password to this account and got locked out for months and months. So here I am again. Aren't you lucky? (/sarcasm)

I'll start posting here again shortly, my first post being a general political rant that'll go up as soon as I'm done with this one...

Just as a general update... I'm currently working on a website that's going to be kind of a cross between Facebook and DeviantArt. Both sites do what they do very well, but personally I'd just like to have a single place where people I know can upload what they've been working on so that I don't have to run all over the ends of the earth (or internet, as the case may be) to find their own personal Tumblr or DeviantArt or whatever.

I have some other ideas for sites as well, including an online marketplace-type thing that also provides the ability to actually TRADE for stuff (something the eBays of the world lack) and some other features. No matter how popular or successful any of these sites are, they build up my web design/programming portfolio and that's really what I need.

As a side note, I've been kind of isolated and distant and hardly ever around over the past few months... there's a very simple reason for that. Aside from my friends, whose numbers are dwindling as they venture off to other lands and places (and as those few who are here get tired of my free-wheeling, wild-dog-esque comings and goings and unreliability), and my family, my life sucks hardcore.

I'm still living at home so that I can save up money for more schooling / whatever, my free time is incredibly limited because I work 10+ hours a day, and I'm moving later this year so the present for me right now is basically just a long, drawn-out closing down of things I've loved and come to take for granted. There's very little that could draw me back into the science field; I went into it thinking it would be financially lucrative (HA!) and that, being science, it would be more logic-oriented and thus fitting with my personality. Nearly two years in the field taught me that there's very little on this earth LESS logical than the science/pharmaceutical industry.

Besides, if the one recruiter I talked to about 6 months ago was correct, I'm essentially obsolete and unemployable in the science field anyway, thanks to my being out of it for over a year. In short, I need to build up my portfolio for web / programming stuff so I can show potential employers what I can do so that they'll hire me and then for the first time in my life I'll actually have a job I actually kind of enjoy.

So, we really have two choices here... I can be around more often and spend a lot of time griping about how much I hate my life. Or, I can spend a good deal of my free time at home squeezing out PHP and Javascript code in the vain hope someday this will make my life better.

I only bring this up because, thanks to my job, I've had a lot of alone time in which to think about how many people I've alienated over the years in one way or another. It's always been due to one of a handful of reasons: I'm too distant and people think I don't like them, or, out of fear of this happening, I'm entirely the opposite, too involved or present or considerate or whatever, and it gets cloying and bothersome.

Or, I get into a party situation with a lot of people, and I drink too much in order to block out my paranoid guardedness, and then I wind up doing something inappropriate.

I've had enough Enforced Time Alone over the past year, though, to have come to terms with a lot of this, and I'm actually kind of okay with it for the first time ever. I used to get frantic if I was alone for too long. Now I kind of enjoy it.

Sometimes you just have to face facts... I am not going to be most people's cup of tea. I'm entirely too guarded to be really open and spontaneous. I had to deal with family issues at a very young age that licensed psychiatrists with 20 years experience had trouble dealing with, and while you can certainly work with the lack of trust and openness that causes, with time, the basic circuitry is still there and probably isn't going to change much.

On the other hand, I have met a number of people over the past few years that, despite being in very close proximity to them for extended periods of time, often in completely bizarre states of consciousness, I have yet to alienate. Of course, 90% of them have left the immediate area, but it's nice to know I'm not completely impossible.

That's enough on a personal front for right now. Up next! Political ranting which may or may not be cogent!

yaaaaaaay!

So I didn't want to post this elsewhere due to people on my LJ having numerous relationship problems and whatnot. I believe pretty strongly in other people's thoughts having effects on your life, i.e. if enough people wish you ill, it'll probably show up somewhere in your life. And in all honesty, I don't have that much going on that's good right now and I'd like to keep what I do have.

So anywho...

Tonight was awesome. I brought a friend from work to a party a few weeks ago where we decided to start dating casually. Tonight was our first actual "date", AKA some drinking mixed with a lot of cuddling, talking, and watching Samurai Champloo. Which I highly recommend (the Samurai Champloo part, though I recommend the first three as well, of course), but that's neither here nor there.

I may have mentioned her... rather novel.. living situation, but I won't do so here. The important thing is, I really, honestly don't care.

So! Day three of my seven-day-straight work week is over.. four more to go. The last three days, of course, are ten-hour days, but hey, I'll get through it eventually.

Yaaaaaay!

In my spare time (spare time? what's that?), I'm studying for my chemistry GRE, which I will most likely have to take October-December-ish so I can go to grad school next fall. I've realized that, for some reason, I absolutely cannot learn anything I don't teach myself. I've learned more chemistry in the past 2 weeks than I learned in four years at UD.

Very weird.

the society of the spectacle

Holy shit.

Read this book in its entirety. It's fairly short, so it shouldn't take you long.

This is exactly what I believe in. It details everything I've known was wrong about modern life, all the delusions and falsehoods those in power have tried to get us all to believe. I understand so much more why I've had the problems I've had in my life, in my personal relationships, and in my professional/career development.

I used to wake up and look at everything and just sort of try to figure out how I was going to deal with whatever bullshit I was inevitably going to face during the day. I had no real goals or dreams, I just wanted to have fun- and even this usually seemed impossible in the face of all the cultural programming we're all indoctrinated with. Sure, I could have fun by myself. I've always had to do that. But it's so much MORE fun to involve other people in things, and, aside from our little conglomerate of artists, free-wheeling drug prophets, renegade programmers, and vagabonds, it's really hard to get people fucking interested in ANYTHING beyond stuffing their faces and/or Collecting It All (TM).

But now? Now I wake up and I look at everything differently. Everything I see and think, I consider as a means to overturn everything, to smash through the web of lies and illusion we've had spun around our heads our whole lives. Words, music, art, and even simple objects can become weapons against the soullessness and emptiness of our everyday lives.

I've got a whole metric crapload (this is an official unit of measurement, you understand) of projects I'm working on right now. All projects listed below, other than the Shrub Book, are on hold, until I get everything for the latter in order.

• First off, the Shrub Book. I just gave Part One of a history of the Smear Summer (you'll understand why it's named that once you read it) to Jan for review. I've been working non-stop on Part II. I'm also working on an "afterword" sort of piece that ties Situationism in with what I've learned and experienced through my time in The Shrub, as well as where it all could potentially go. There's another piece about Acid Night I'd really like to finish, time permitting, but we'll see. That one's currently 9 pages, single-spaced, and it's maybe half-done. The Smear Summer history is potentially going to be about 30.
• I'm also still working on a novel. It's tentatively titled "Repent, Resent, Reset" and is about a captain of a spaceship who wakes up entirely alone one day. His spaceship is equipped with nanotechnology that keeps him alive without his doing anything, so he spends the next 300 years or so progressively going insane. Telling you more would spoil the story, but I will say that it's intentionally Lovecraftian, in a sense, not because I'm trying to rip him off, but because I see this story as kind of a counterpoint to the Situationism I've been getting so into lately. It's basically taking the delusional narcissism our society is so enraptured with to its logical extreme. I'm only 20 pages or so into it, and it's already horrifying.
• In a few words: I Only Speak In Pictures. This is the album I've been working on for the past three years. Completely unintentionally, since I didn't even know what Situationism was three years ago, and I've only recently gotten into it seriously, it's entirely Situationist in theme. It's a concept album detailing the journey of one person from a horrific, consumer-culture-imposed nihilism into a realization of the beauty, freedom, and general awesomeness of life. Before I started working hardcore on the Shrub Book, I was well on my way to mixing and mastering it.
• Now that I'm working again, I can gather together some musical equipment and hopefully start doing live music. I've tried a few times, even when I had more equipment, but my setup has always been so terrible that people just look at it and don't take it seriously.
• This is kind of a minor thing, but Emily's party is going to be pretty wild. I know, I know, it's just a party, but it has a breaking laws/transgression theme. I've got some pretty bizarre ideas for it that I can't wait to bring into reality.

There's a whole bunch more stuff I'm into right now, but this is way too long already. So... fuck yeah. I can has goals.

Long-term goals, of course, involve either getting a better job 6 to 12 months down the road, or going to grad school, both of which I'm only doing for the money. And yes, the desire for money seems entirely counter to everything I was talking about above. But it isn't. I'm one of the least materialistic people you'll ever meet. I only want more money because it gives me more power to do things with more scope and grandeur. It's sort of a "use their own weapons to destroy them" kind of thing.

Fuck yeah. Life is looking pretty good right now.

dan deacon

Another thing I want to do: play a show with Dan Deacon live.

Okay... watch the video and listen to the music, then consider the fact he works directly with waveforms (like sine waves, square waves, and so forth), just like I do...

...and now look at his Wikipedia entry. Specifically, look at the third through fifth words.

That's right. He's born THE SAME DAY AND YEAR AS ME.

I found this to be a really awesome coincidence.

situationism is amazing

With my life having somehow exploded into a massively exercise in indecision and confusion, I've found myself needing new things to think about to distract me. As a result, I've really gotten into the following, at least intellectually:

Culture Jamming
Situationism
Paris Uprising of 1968

All of these having been heavily influenced by Guy Debord, who I know about primarily due to his being quoted and a huge influence on Orchid, one of my favorite bands ever.

So, I had the following ideas:

1. Someone needs to hold an entire church service, preferably a really important Mass of some sort... entirely in Klingon.
2. This one I'll probably actually DO, once I get enough money. ...Essentially, I want to create billboards for entirely fictional products and have these billboards appear on major highways. The billboards should be vague and obtuse, i.e. a picture of a dog smelling something and the words "Enjoy a Baft today!". 25 miles or so down the road, another billboard should be present. This one should also be ambiguous and vague and should say something to the effect of "Did you get your Baft?"
3. I want to stage a Whirl-Mart demonstration. No, seriously, I REALLY want to do this.
4. I need to buy monk robes for this, and some of you have heard of this already, but... I want to make a short film based on a dream my sociopathic grandmother had in the 70's. Essentially, she walked up to this weird Greco-Roman-Atlantean temple and met these robed wise men. She tried asking them questions about her life but they never said anything.. UNTIL she asked about my mother. Immediately thereafter, they started yelling "TELL HER TO GO TO THE MOUNTAINS!!!!" at her. I want this performed, and I want the robed people to not yell "TELL HER TO GO TO THE MOUNTAINS" in unison all the time. "TELL HER TO-" "TELL HER- " TELL HER TO GO TO THE MOUNTAINS!" TELL HER TO GO TO THE MOUNTAINS!!!" ...Yeah.
5. I also want to have the Newark equivalent of subway parties, featuring alcohol of course, but also featuring people wearing the robes in item number four.
   

More on the reasoning behind all this later, I have things to do.

I'm really starting to think that not doing drugs has returned me to being almost as weird as I was before I started doing drugs.

my homage to icanhascheezburger

This is my first attempt at anything icanhascheezburgeresque. I doubt I can actually submit it because I found the image on Wikipedia.

It was the cat on the right that I found funny, really.