and friday night has always been sacred around here, for the following reasons:
(a) at first--and for years and years and glorious years--friday night was all about single-mindedly going out and scoring ass.
(b) then, at some point later--and for a good while afterwards--friday night became all about going out and maybe getting a little shitfaced in the process of scoring ass.
(c) more recently, friday night meant coming home, getting fairly shitfaced while perusing the internet, and then going out and scoring whatever ass could be found on craigslist, manhunt or a4a;
(d) and these days (and understand that for brevity's sake i'm skipping all the little intermediate, incremental steps that took me over the course of many years from (a) to (d)), more and more, friday night's all about coming home and getting thoroughly shitfaced and wrapped up in the internet, and to hell with the ass.
somebody tell me please--how the fuck did it come to this?
[and yeah, that's another rhetorical question]
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
here's why this blog's been so schizo lately
unless they're really pretty or write really well, depressed people generally aren't very interesting--we tend to be morose, self-absorbed navel-gazing narcissists who don't go anywhere or do anything because we're too busy holed up at home being all focused on our inner pain and shit--and trust me, the only thing worse than living through it yourself is having to hear all about it from somebody else.
i mean, jesus--i see all these blogs out there by all these seemingly (pick and choose from the following adjectives) smart, talented, articulate, charismatic, funny, caring, sophisticated, passionate, rich, pretty, accomplished, star-fucking, infinitely-libidinous, globe-trotting uber-faggots who apparently live in some alternate universe than mine and whose action-packed, fun-filled, varied and endlessly interesting lives put my little excuse for an existence to shame.
understand: it's not that i particularly envy these people; in fact, that's the problem--i couldn't care less. and this is not to say i don't enjoy the reads; it's more that i just can't even begin to relate.
and it's not because i don't have the raw materials--i mean, i'm smart and clever, i've had a few successes, i've seen a few things, i've slept with my share of guys (and yours too, probably), and in the course of the last few years i've accumulated sufficient fuck-you money to be able to distract myself with all kinds of useless shiny crap or take enough time off to leisurely screw my way from tijuana to tierra del fuego and back if i wanted--it's just that nothing seems worth the trouble of buying or doing.
yeah, i know it's ridiculous--guy's got all these options he's worked very hard to create for himself, and now can't be bothered to exercise any of 'em (in fact, in many ways i live worse now than i did when i was poor).
all of which goes to explain why--and this is the point of this post--i'm so often left with fuck-all to write about. as i've said, you gotta be a much better writer than me to make a life such as mine interesting.
see, when i started this thing i swore to myself i'd post every day, the whole point of this exercise being my determination to make myself start writing. but it's proving to be harder than i thought, so when i'm at a loss for content i tend to fall back on my two old reliables: (a) politics, and/or (b) comments i've made on other peoples' blogs.
why politics? i'm not really sure, especially seeing as how i believe america's pretty much done regardless of who gets elected president, but for whatever reason politics is one of the few things that stirs any passion in my soul these days. and as far as using comments i make elsewhere for content here, i guess it's because i find it easier to react to somebody else's shit than to dream up my own.
so until that changes, there is no common theme here; anybody who comes here is likely gonna see a mishmash of personal stuff, political commentary and references to blogs that are better-written and -managed than this one.
i mean, jesus--i see all these blogs out there by all these seemingly (pick and choose from the following adjectives) smart, talented, articulate, charismatic, funny, caring, sophisticated, passionate, rich, pretty, accomplished, star-fucking, infinitely-libidinous, globe-trotting uber-faggots who apparently live in some alternate universe than mine and whose action-packed, fun-filled, varied and endlessly interesting lives put my little excuse for an existence to shame.
understand: it's not that i particularly envy these people; in fact, that's the problem--i couldn't care less. and this is not to say i don't enjoy the reads; it's more that i just can't even begin to relate.
and it's not because i don't have the raw materials--i mean, i'm smart and clever, i've had a few successes, i've seen a few things, i've slept with my share of guys (and yours too, probably), and in the course of the last few years i've accumulated sufficient fuck-you money to be able to distract myself with all kinds of useless shiny crap or take enough time off to leisurely screw my way from tijuana to tierra del fuego and back if i wanted--it's just that nothing seems worth the trouble of buying or doing.
yeah, i know it's ridiculous--guy's got all these options he's worked very hard to create for himself, and now can't be bothered to exercise any of 'em (in fact, in many ways i live worse now than i did when i was poor).
all of which goes to explain why--and this is the point of this post--i'm so often left with fuck-all to write about. as i've said, you gotta be a much better writer than me to make a life such as mine interesting.
see, when i started this thing i swore to myself i'd post every day, the whole point of this exercise being my determination to make myself start writing. but it's proving to be harder than i thought, so when i'm at a loss for content i tend to fall back on my two old reliables: (a) politics, and/or (b) comments i've made on other peoples' blogs.
why politics? i'm not really sure, especially seeing as how i believe america's pretty much done regardless of who gets elected president, but for whatever reason politics is one of the few things that stirs any passion in my soul these days. and as far as using comments i make elsewhere for content here, i guess it's because i find it easier to react to somebody else's shit than to dream up my own.
so until that changes, there is no common theme here; anybody who comes here is likely gonna see a mishmash of personal stuff, political commentary and references to blogs that are better-written and -managed than this one.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
should everybody lay off barack about the farrakhan connection?
scott thinks so; i'm not so sure. my comment is as follows:
yeah [tim russert was outta line with his farrakhan line of inquiry during the last debate], except that obama's long-time minister and spiritual advisor, the rev. jeremiah wright--the guy who married him, baptized his children, counseled him on his runs for both the senate and the presidency, inspired the title of his book, and I could go on and on--this guy thinks farrakhan walks on fuckin water.
look, I don't give a rat's ass what color obama is and will respond to any and all attacks against him on that basis with the scorn they deserve; however, the backstory of his exceptionally close allegiance to a spiritual leader who, among other things, just gave louis farrakhan a "lifetime achievement" award named after himself are, far as I'm concerned, more than fair game for close scrutiny.
that's where russert's questions should've gone--and this is an area where hillary could've legitimately hit him as well, rather than cravenly circulating chickenshit pictures of him in somali-elder garb.
the problem, of course, is that we as a nation are so hamstrung by political-correctness that anybody (well, anybody white or, god forbid, jewish) who dares raise this issue to the level of public awareness it deserves will be immediately and loudly decried as a racist, and the questions that should be asked and answered lost in all the mud.
__________________________________
yeah [tim russert was outta line with his farrakhan line of inquiry during the last debate], except that obama's long-time minister and spiritual advisor, the rev. jeremiah wright--the guy who married him, baptized his children, counseled him on his runs for both the senate and the presidency, inspired the title of his book, and I could go on and on--this guy thinks farrakhan walks on fuckin water.
look, I don't give a rat's ass what color obama is and will respond to any and all attacks against him on that basis with the scorn they deserve; however, the backstory of his exceptionally close allegiance to a spiritual leader who, among other things, just gave louis farrakhan a "lifetime achievement" award named after himself are, far as I'm concerned, more than fair game for close scrutiny.
that's where russert's questions should've gone--and this is an area where hillary could've legitimately hit him as well, rather than cravenly circulating chickenshit pictures of him in somali-elder garb.
the problem, of course, is that we as a nation are so hamstrung by political-correctness that anybody (well, anybody white or, god forbid, jewish) who dares raise this issue to the level of public awareness it deserves will be immediately and loudly decried as a racist, and the questions that should be asked and answered lost in all the mud.
__________________________________
to date, i haven't researched this issue thoroughly--i've seen some hyperbolic fear-mongering from conservative sources and a lot of whitewashing and "rehabilitation" of rev. wright from liberal sources--so i'm far from coming to any conclusions one way or the other. what i really want is objective, unvarnished, truthful answers to the following questions:
to date, i haven't researched this issue thoroughly--i've seen some hyperbolic fear-mongering from conservative sources and a lot of whitewashing and "rehabilitation" of rev. wright from liberal sources--so i'm far from coming to any conclusions one way or the other. what i really want is objective, unvarnished, truthful answers to the following questions:
- how honest-to-god tight is barack obama with this rev. wright character;
- how much honest-to-god influence has said reverend had on the development of obama's political philosophy;
- what would be the future role of said reverend (and his several organizations) in an obama administration; and
- how honest-to-god closely aligned are this reverend and his church to the doctrine of louis farrakhan?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
an unsolicited guttermorality op-ed
so i'm over at debriefing the boys, and today the kid's wallowing luxuriantly in the sort of eloquent, introspective comment-provoking angst that makes his one of the few twentysomething blogs i bother reading (oh, and the fact that he hasn't banned me despite any number of drunken, offensively presumptious comments goes to his favor as well).
anyway, his post today moved me to write in a way that nothing going on around here at the moment has, so once again a comment made elsewhere does double-duty as an entry here.
[insert standard mkf “this is not intended nor should it be construed as a put-down” disclaimer here]
congratulations: you’re a prime example of the culmination of generations of well-meaning american parents’ efforts to give their children a “better” life than they had. and the cumulative result of all this kindness? a whole new class of young adults who evince misery and dissatisfaction that their lives out in the cold, cruel world aren’t as instantly (and unrealistically) perfect as their sheltered childhoods were.
and if it makes you feel better, you’re far from alone. there’s a large and ever-growing body of media out there about the “everybody gets a trophy” generation—about how, now that they’re entering the workforce, employers everywhere are having to bend over backward to accommodate these kids’ unrealistic expectations that they should be able to just blow past all the incremental drudgery traditionally involved in climbing the ladder and immediately shoot right to the top.
see, what america has forgotten in its quest for perfect lives for everyone is that there’s tremendous wisdom in making kids struggle and work for shit, allowing them to taste the agony of defeat, and teaching them how to delay gratification; problem is, there’s pain intrinsic to all of those processes of maturation, and most parents can’t stand to see their kids in pain—so, to the extent allowed by their means, and human nature being what it is, they carpet the world for them. and the big problem is, each generation since the depression has had infinitely greater means with which to make life “easier” for their offspring than the one before—to the point that we now find ourselves with a generation that has no stomach for struggle, and sees instant gratification as its due.
so I would submit that it’s not that your father and his forbears had “lower” expectations than yours--in fact, that's a slap in the face to your father and all he's achieved, especially in light of his family's low expectations for him--far as I’m concerned, a more likely possibility would be that, as a result of their respective upbringings, their expectations were simply more in sync with way the world actually works than are yours.
and as to the whole denmark thing: I saw that story (as well as one 20/20 recently did on the happiest countries on earth), and I agree with others here that to some degree you missed the point, coming as you apparently do from a perspective that so links money and satiation of ambition to happiness—what you characterize as the danes’ “low expectations” could also be seen as a reasoned societal rejection of shallow materialism, acquisition, status and class as measures of happiness for the more enduring qualities of security, community, homogeneity and shared values—and by all objective measures, they might well be onto something (listen to me, I sound like a goddam communist).
and to answer your question: given your stated criteria for happiness and your apparent distaste for dues-paying and delayed gratification, I dunno if you’ll ever be happy or not, kid—-you may have been permanently cursed by early, unearned abundance. my advice would be to do what millions before you have done: learn to use your discontent as a motivating fuel to propel you from where you are now to where you wanna be—and understand it probably won’t happen overnight (and that’s if you’re lucky--if you actually achieved the instant arrival you apparently crave, trust me when i tell you that you’d be back the next day with an “is that all there is?” post).
and finally, since i seem to be so full of pithy wisdom today, remember something somebody really smart once said: “happiness is never experienced; it is only recalled.” if you’re like most people, you’ll look back on your early days of struggle as some of the best of your life.
[oh, and thanks for giving me blog-fodder for today, because up until I read your post I had nothin’.]
anyway, his post today moved me to write in a way that nothing going on around here at the moment has, so once again a comment made elsewhere does double-duty as an entry here.
____________________________________
[insert standard mkf “this is not intended nor should it be construed as a put-down” disclaimer here]
congratulations: you’re a prime example of the culmination of generations of well-meaning american parents’ efforts to give their children a “better” life than they had. and the cumulative result of all this kindness? a whole new class of young adults who evince misery and dissatisfaction that their lives out in the cold, cruel world aren’t as instantly (and unrealistically) perfect as their sheltered childhoods were.
and if it makes you feel better, you’re far from alone. there’s a large and ever-growing body of media out there about the “everybody gets a trophy” generation—about how, now that they’re entering the workforce, employers everywhere are having to bend over backward to accommodate these kids’ unrealistic expectations that they should be able to just blow past all the incremental drudgery traditionally involved in climbing the ladder and immediately shoot right to the top.
see, what america has forgotten in its quest for perfect lives for everyone is that there’s tremendous wisdom in making kids struggle and work for shit, allowing them to taste the agony of defeat, and teaching them how to delay gratification; problem is, there’s pain intrinsic to all of those processes of maturation, and most parents can’t stand to see their kids in pain—so, to the extent allowed by their means, and human nature being what it is, they carpet the world for them. and the big problem is, each generation since the depression has had infinitely greater means with which to make life “easier” for their offspring than the one before—to the point that we now find ourselves with a generation that has no stomach for struggle, and sees instant gratification as its due.
so I would submit that it’s not that your father and his forbears had “lower” expectations than yours--in fact, that's a slap in the face to your father and all he's achieved, especially in light of his family's low expectations for him--far as I’m concerned, a more likely possibility would be that, as a result of their respective upbringings, their expectations were simply more in sync with way the world actually works than are yours.
and as to the whole denmark thing: I saw that story (as well as one 20/20 recently did on the happiest countries on earth), and I agree with others here that to some degree you missed the point, coming as you apparently do from a perspective that so links money and satiation of ambition to happiness—what you characterize as the danes’ “low expectations” could also be seen as a reasoned societal rejection of shallow materialism, acquisition, status and class as measures of happiness for the more enduring qualities of security, community, homogeneity and shared values—and by all objective measures, they might well be onto something (listen to me, I sound like a goddam communist).
and to answer your question: given your stated criteria for happiness and your apparent distaste for dues-paying and delayed gratification, I dunno if you’ll ever be happy or not, kid—-you may have been permanently cursed by early, unearned abundance. my advice would be to do what millions before you have done: learn to use your discontent as a motivating fuel to propel you from where you are now to where you wanna be—and understand it probably won’t happen overnight (and that’s if you’re lucky--if you actually achieved the instant arrival you apparently crave, trust me when i tell you that you’d be back the next day with an “is that all there is?” post).
and finally, since i seem to be so full of pithy wisdom today, remember something somebody really smart once said: “happiness is never experienced; it is only recalled.” if you’re like most people, you’ll look back on your early days of struggle as some of the best of your life.
[oh, and thanks for giving me blog-fodder for today, because up until I read your post I had nothin’.]
____________________________________
i remember growing up, my elderly relatives would tell me stories about living through the great depression, and i, a soft, pampered baby-boomlet, would always ask myself, "could i have done [insert incredible story of deprivation and self-sacrifice]?" and the answer was often no; these people--my parents' and grandparents' generations--were unquestionably tougher than me.
of course, this trend of the softening of successive generations didn't really seem to matter--as long as america reigned supreme anyway. but our day in the sun is quickly coming to a close, and if the present generation is having this much trouble adjusting to reality as it is now, i have to wonder how they're gonna cope if things really go south.
i have a feeling we may find out.
of course, this trend of the softening of successive generations didn't really seem to matter--as long as america reigned supreme anyway. but our day in the sun is quickly coming to a close, and if the present generation is having this much trouble adjusting to reality as it is now, i have to wonder how they're gonna cope if things really go south.
i have a feeling we may find out.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
i'm always the last one to see stuff like this
text
so i'm sure it's old news, but i'm posting it anyway because it's what made me laugh today.
so i'm sure it's old news, but i'm posting it anyway because it's what made me laugh today.
Monday, February 25, 2008
ok, it's like this
yeah, my family's fucked up. and it's also true that my brother and i are not close--before yesterday, we hadn't spoken in several years.
but that's not why i had to drug myself in order to pick up the phone and call him; i can't put that off on my brother or even my family at large. it's about me, really.
see, i am, for lack of a better word, depressed. and since i know that's a word that's thrown around a lot, lemme clarify. i'm not talking about "feeling a little down lately", nor do i mean the kind of depression that often accompanies an adverse life event such as getting divorced or fired or something. i don't even mean the kind of chronic depression that responds to psychotropic medication. this is different--i started shutting down when i was ten years old, and it's progressed pretty much steadily ever since, to the point that these days unless i'm drugged or drunk i don't feel much of anything (well, not anything good, anyway; when it comes to the bad stuff, trust me, i have a rich and varied emotional range).
but here's the other thing: since i am not by nature a whiner or attention-seeking exhibitionist, nor do i have any desire to suffer the burden of anyone's concerned solicitude for my well-being, i've gone to great lengths to hide my problem from the world--for most of my life, it's been all about putting up one front or another. problem is, as things progress, it's getting harder and harder to keep that shit up.
especially when it comes to the people about whom i'm supposed to care the most.
i mean, at work, and with people i know casually, it's still fairly easy to fake it, but the closer the relationship--the more that's required of me emotionally--the more distant i get, because i've pretty much lost the ability to evince the warmth and affection intrinsic to close human relationships. understand, i'm not saying that on some level somewhere i don't feel those things anymore--hell, if i didn't there'd be no problem; i'd just cut myself off from everyone. what i'm saying is, unless i'm drunk or drugged, i can't get anywhere near what feelings i have left for the people who love me and are hurt by my seemingly growing indifference--and that sucks more than i can possibly tell you.
maybe more about that later--for now, lemme just say this: i've decided to do a little experiment. i'm gonna use the venue afforded by this blog to just be who the fuck i really am--without artifice and pretense and filtering and acting like everything's ok, or worrying what people are gonna think--and just see what happens. and while i can't promise it'll be interesting to anybody else--hell, will probably horrify more than a few (because it's dark in here, folks)--at the very least i'm hoping it'll be somewhat freeing for me, because i could sure as hell use the release.
but that's not why i had to drug myself in order to pick up the phone and call him; i can't put that off on my brother or even my family at large. it's about me, really.
see, i am, for lack of a better word, depressed. and since i know that's a word that's thrown around a lot, lemme clarify. i'm not talking about "feeling a little down lately", nor do i mean the kind of depression that often accompanies an adverse life event such as getting divorced or fired or something. i don't even mean the kind of chronic depression that responds to psychotropic medication. this is different--i started shutting down when i was ten years old, and it's progressed pretty much steadily ever since, to the point that these days unless i'm drugged or drunk i don't feel much of anything (well, not anything good, anyway; when it comes to the bad stuff, trust me, i have a rich and varied emotional range).
but here's the other thing: since i am not by nature a whiner or attention-seeking exhibitionist, nor do i have any desire to suffer the burden of anyone's concerned solicitude for my well-being, i've gone to great lengths to hide my problem from the world--for most of my life, it's been all about putting up one front or another. problem is, as things progress, it's getting harder and harder to keep that shit up.
especially when it comes to the people about whom i'm supposed to care the most.
i mean, at work, and with people i know casually, it's still fairly easy to fake it, but the closer the relationship--the more that's required of me emotionally--the more distant i get, because i've pretty much lost the ability to evince the warmth and affection intrinsic to close human relationships. understand, i'm not saying that on some level somewhere i don't feel those things anymore--hell, if i didn't there'd be no problem; i'd just cut myself off from everyone. what i'm saying is, unless i'm drunk or drugged, i can't get anywhere near what feelings i have left for the people who love me and are hurt by my seemingly growing indifference--and that sucks more than i can possibly tell you.
maybe more about that later--for now, lemme just say this: i've decided to do a little experiment. i'm gonna use the venue afforded by this blog to just be who the fuck i really am--without artifice and pretense and filtering and acting like everything's ok, or worrying what people are gonna think--and just see what happens. and while i can't promise it'll be interesting to anybody else--hell, will probably horrify more than a few (because it's dark in here, folks)--at the very least i'm hoping it'll be somewhat freeing for me, because i could sure as hell use the release.
endgame
test
it's now officially desperation time and the clinton campaign is playing the final, scorch-the-earth card left left in their meager deck: scare the white people.
i knew this was coming--the only question i had was, how exactly were they gonna dabble in that kinda shit without getting it on 'em? their answer, apparently, was to circulate a photo that, on its face, is nothing more than that of yet one more american politician donning the native garb of whatever third-world country he happens to be visiting--i mean, we've seen it a million times, right?
the difference with this particular photo, of course, is that it's not of a lame-ass white politician looking ridiculous in some exotic get-up--this one is of a black politician with a funny african name looking not-so-ridiculous in his somali-elder outfit. and the unspoken message to white texas and ohio voters is unmistakably clear: he may clean up nice when he puts on a suit, but this is what you're really getting.
now if the obama camp had been smart, they would've simply acknowledged the photo, made some innocuous statement about the senator's fond memories of his somalia trip and moved on. but nooooo, they did exactly what the clinton folks hoped they'd do: they reflexively took the bait and went apeshit, thus giving hillary's people the opportunity to exercise their deniability ("why's he getting so upset? it's just a picture, isn't it?") and accuse him of bringing race into the deal.
a political ploy almost rovian in its brilliance, one might say. problem is, shit like this isn't gonna help hillary, especially at this point--it just makes her look bad. but, by playing on the unease felt by many about his roots and bona fides, this could still hurt obama--in other words, the clinton campaign is now effectively doing the republicans' dirty work for them.
[and please understand, i'm no idiot: having researched this story far and wide, i'm totally willing to grant that this whole thing maybe could be nothing more than yet another of matt drudge's seemingly endless anti-hillary assaults--except that (1) had that been the case, the squawks of outrage from the clinton campaign woulda been infinitely louder and more convincing than they actually were; and (b) again, i'm no idiot.]
it's now officially desperation time and the clinton campaign is playing the final, scorch-the-earth card left left in their meager deck: scare the white people.
i knew this was coming--the only question i had was, how exactly were they gonna dabble in that kinda shit without getting it on 'em? their answer, apparently, was to circulate a photo that, on its face, is nothing more than that of yet one more american politician donning the native garb of whatever third-world country he happens to be visiting--i mean, we've seen it a million times, right?
the difference with this particular photo, of course, is that it's not of a lame-ass white politician looking ridiculous in some exotic get-up--this one is of a black politician with a funny african name looking not-so-ridiculous in his somali-elder outfit. and the unspoken message to white texas and ohio voters is unmistakably clear: he may clean up nice when he puts on a suit, but this is what you're really getting.
now if the obama camp had been smart, they would've simply acknowledged the photo, made some innocuous statement about the senator's fond memories of his somalia trip and moved on. but nooooo, they did exactly what the clinton folks hoped they'd do: they reflexively took the bait and went apeshit, thus giving hillary's people the opportunity to exercise their deniability ("why's he getting so upset? it's just a picture, isn't it?") and accuse him of bringing race into the deal.
a political ploy almost rovian in its brilliance, one might say. problem is, shit like this isn't gonna help hillary, especially at this point--it just makes her look bad. but, by playing on the unease felt by many about his roots and bona fides, this could still hurt obama--in other words, the clinton campaign is now effectively doing the republicans' dirty work for them.
[and please understand, i'm no idiot: having researched this story far and wide, i'm totally willing to grant that this whole thing maybe could be nothing more than yet another of matt drudge's seemingly endless anti-hillary assaults--except that (1) had that been the case, the squawks of outrage from the clinton campaign woulda been infinitely louder and more convincing than they actually were; and (b) again, i'm no idiot.]
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