"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a commonstock for man to labour and live on."
--Thomas Jefferson
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Quote du Jour
Friday, December 02, 2011
Why the left needs to get comfortable with guns...
FOX's Greg Gutfeld gushes over a Xmas card where kids are posing with hand guns and the father is pointing a gun at his wife.
They are itching for it, and unstable times encourage unstable people to do irrational and violent things. And when you have a "News" organization encouraging it and disseminating crazy like (M)Ann Coulter...
"I like it because it scares the hell out of visiting Europeans who already think we’re crazy people and they think my god, we’re never invading this country. Number two: it’s a reminder to all you Occupy Wall Streeters that if there is a revolution, the other side is better armed."
They are itching for it, and unstable times encourage unstable people to do irrational and violent things. And when you have a "News" organization encouraging it and disseminating crazy like (M)Ann Coulter...
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Breaking News: Man raised by gay couple turns out to be normal!!! Whodduh thunk it?!?
Here's a man who was raised by a lesbian couple. You will notice for all intensive purposes that he is completely normal. That is because the parents sexual orientation has nothing to do with a child's orientation. So, James Dobson, Rick Santorum, and the rest of the GOP: Stop blaming the ails of society on the
Thursday, October 27, 2011
A Month of Turmoil & Insanity Reveal a Silver Lining
Those who know me best would never call me an optimist. Yet within a short duration in which I have lost my place of residence, my motorhome, my grandfather, and a majority of material possessions; I find myself giddy at the prospect of what the future may bring. Why? There are a many reasons, but in short, one reason stands heads and shoulders above the rest: I have met someone I like. Not only do I have an affinity for her, but I also feel a renewed interest in life. But surprisingly, and most important of all, she feels the same way about me as I do about her.
Of course as with all things good in life, this budding relationship is not without it's setbacks. My initial plans of relocation to San Diego have gone the way of the dodo, reasonable political discourse in America, and Crystal Pepsi. So naturally I fought this tooth and nail, but in the end no amount of reason, adversity, or drama can sway my mind once it has been commandeered by my heart. So how did this all happen? And why couldn't I foresee it? Well my dear non-existent reader, I am glad you asked.
Let us rewind one month and start where most life altering news starts, with a ringing phone. I received the call from my aunt informing me of my grandfather's heart attack at approximately 0900: "The doctor is saying this is it, so you'd better get down here as soon as possible." With my RV sold and all my possessions removed from my sister's house, I was all but a train ride away from leaving the Inland Empire for good, but with the advent of losing the one true father figure in my life, my plans of escape would have to wait.
I spent the following week with my grandfather in hospice. While he was conscious I made sure that people who were close to me like my nephew and my friends knew it was time to say good bye. Among his visitors was a former co-worker turned friend, his wife, and his sister... the girl who would ultimately be my salvation through these dark times.
Sleeping in a convalescent home is not easy and it physically manifested itself in the form of bags under my eyes. Both my aunt and my mother kept telling me to go home and get some sleep, but I refused because I knew that when he finally realized that he was dying that he would call out for me... And should I not be there when he did, I would never be able to forgive myself.
The hour came and he called out as I had expected. I didn't expect for him to abruptly lean forward and pull me to him for one last hug. For a man who was dying, he was still surprisingly strong. He was in a lot of pain and tears flowed from his eyes as he told me he loved me and was going to miss me. His words were rudely interrupted by a spasming pain. He was in the final stages of renal failure, which despite his efforts to hide, looked excruciating. He stared past me. "What do you see grandpa?" "Nothing."
I instructed the hospice nurse to increase his Roxanol and he eventually went under. He would come out once more to see an old friend, but ultimately spent the next two days in a drug induced coma. Friday morning my family and I were in the lobby waiting for the attendants to turn my grandfather over to help drain the sputum from his lungs when the hospice nurse called us in to tell us he was about to pass. Although my family thought he was still alive, I believe he waited until we were out of the room to die.
With my mother on the way and the rest of my family out in the hall, I helped the hospice nurse dress the body of the man I once saw as a god. After crossing his arms on his chest, I felt a strange need for some sort of ritual to say goodbye. I lacked the silver dollars for the ferryman, so I decided on placing one last Hershey's bar in his front pocket, and then wrote his obituary for those who were following his status online:
To make matters worse, I couldn't see my nephews whenever I wanted to anymore because they had moved into the bungalow behind my sister's boyfriend's house. And to put it frankly, he is a cock-sucker. I have a dream that one day I will say hi and he will do the adult thing, and say hi back. Then my step father came back and I could no longer stay at my mother's because he has a problem with anyone staying in their four bedroom house. So I had no choice but to stay at my deceased grandfather's house, which by this time had been readied for the upcoming estate sale. All the cupboards were emptied: plates, cups and glasses were all laid out on tables. All the furniture was pushed into the front room, books stacked against the walls, and several of my childhood toys and memories were all on display.
I stayed there a week knowing that it was all going to be scavenged by vultures at the estate sale. And since the cable was disconnected the very day after he died, I had nothing but these relics of our past to occupy my time with. I did a lot of staring at walls when I wasn't going through old photographs or deciding what things I was going to have to leave behind. And during that time I thought a lot about my grandpa, who he was and why. But being alone in a time like this is unhealthy, so I turned to someone who had recently expressed an interest in hanging out before I left: my friend's little sister.
We had hung out together in the company of my buddy and his wife. On the weekends as my time in Banning would have been ending, we all hung out during the weekends. But during the week I was lonely and we started texting each other and hanging out on our own time. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend, who was pretty much obsessed with her and would want to tag along when we hung out. I had no intention of doing anything other than the usual video games, drinking, and smoking so it wasn't a big deal except for the fact that he would almost always get drunk, start an argument with her and just ruin the mood. For this I named him Emo Care Bear, and other than his drunk outbursts and the fact that he would to try to push hugs on me, I liked him.
Emo Care Bear, or ECB for short was even invited to party with me and my buddy's sister when I was house sitting Nash's house. We drank together but I noticed ECB was on a mission to get drunk. I tried to get him to slow down but ECB was hell-bent on making an ass out of himself. And he didn't disappoint. First he managed to wander into my friend's bedroom. I told him to get out, and he didn't listen. The bouncer in me was about to come out, but then he finally listened to reason and thankfully I didn't have to escort him out in an arm bar. He spent the rest of the evening and the following day projectile vomiting. Two days later when I wanted company and drinks again, I didn't invite him back. Instead Chip joined us and we drank the night away listening to Stan Getz.
Back at my grandfather's house she continued to text me everyday. She suggested we could hang out in the graveyard. That day I couldn't do it but said maybe tomorrow. We decided we would dress up as goths, get a bottle of wine and read poetry in the cemetery the following day. When I went to pick her up at her father's I was stunned. She looked beautiful, like a model. She was in some sort of black bodice, with a black tutu like skirt. Long black leather boots laced up to her knees, while black feathers dangled from her ears stood in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. Her eyes were a piercing green as she chastised me for not having my outfit on. It was almost too to much take in.
We hopped the stone wall near the gates and stuck to the shadows. She wasn't wearing her glasses so I was especially vigilant for both our sakes. I laid my coat down for us to sit on and poured us our wine. We talked and joked about how goth we were until the bottle ran out and as we left I felt rather satisfied that done all this without being detected by the night watch. Later at the house she would ask me to smell her new scented lotions. This of course made me very nervous. Prior to seeing her all dressed up, I liked her, but only as a friend who I liked to box with and play video games. Now I realized what should have been obvious, she was a beautiful woman who was making time to get to know me.
"Smells like it's edible. Like peaches."
"It's mango passion. Now smell this one" she said as she rubbed it on her other arm.
"Smells like some sort of bread."
"It's cupcakes" she said. She started to rub the next lotion on her right leg. Now I was really nervous. I smelled it and recognized it as a very familiar smell, but couldn't place it.
"I know this one..." I drifted off to my eleventh grade summer when I spent two weeks in Minnesota visiting a friend who had moved there. "It reminds me of a girl I once knew."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Neither. Just a memory." I think she sensed my apprehension because she chose to wash off the other lotions and put the final one on her hand instead of her other leg.
"What's it smell like to you?" she asked. I hadn't the faintest, I was afraid to answer incorrectly.
"Tacos?"
"What?!?"
"Johnny's Sport Tacos in Mentone... I don't know, maybe a waitress there wore it?" I was too tired to even defend myself.
The next day my buddy woke me up to move my car and I couldn't find my keys. I ended up walking back to the tombstone where I knew I left them only to find they weren't there. This prompted one the best statuses I have posted on Facebook:
From that point on I knew I was in trouble, because I become clumsy, forgetful, and awkward when I really like a girl. And I was rapidly becoming all of these. We kept hanging out and as I figured it drew the suspicion of our friend the Emo Care Bear. ECB wrote me a letter about the Halloween Party I wanted to take her to, and he stated he wanted to go. This was not going to happen. I reassured him that nothing would happen to her there and that I would keep an eye on her at all times due to what my own brother had to done to the last girl I really liked. I debated telling her about ECB's letter, but in the end thought she should know. She said they had already hashed it out and things were all good, but I knew they weren't.
I told her that ECB's concern that I might encroach upon his territory were valid, that I did indeed like her, and that I had tried to fight it because it put a monkey wrench in my plans for relocation. She told me that has happened with a lot of her male friends, and I left feeling awkward and stupid for being just another who misread her. Once I got to my mother's I sent my buddy's sister a text because I just had to know if she saw me like I saw her. Her body language told me she liked me, but because I liked her, my analysis was compromised. I had to know or I would never sleep. After ten minutes of waiting she confessed that when I told her I was going to leave she felt physical pain in her chest...
This was all I needed to hear. Perhaps I won't be leaving for San Diego after all.
- Mildly Brilliant
Of course as with all things good in life, this budding relationship is not without it's setbacks. My initial plans of relocation to San Diego have gone the way of the dodo, reasonable political discourse in America, and Crystal Pepsi. So naturally I fought this tooth and nail, but in the end no amount of reason, adversity, or drama can sway my mind once it has been commandeered by my heart. So how did this all happen? And why couldn't I foresee it? Well my dear non-existent reader, I am glad you asked.
Let us rewind one month and start where most life altering news starts, with a ringing phone. I received the call from my aunt informing me of my grandfather's heart attack at approximately 0900: "The doctor is saying this is it, so you'd better get down here as soon as possible." With my RV sold and all my possessions removed from my sister's house, I was all but a train ride away from leaving the Inland Empire for good, but with the advent of losing the one true father figure in my life, my plans of escape would have to wait.
I spent the following week with my grandfather in hospice. While he was conscious I made sure that people who were close to me like my nephew and my friends knew it was time to say good bye. Among his visitors was a former co-worker turned friend, his wife, and his sister... the girl who would ultimately be my salvation through these dark times.
Sleeping in a convalescent home is not easy and it physically manifested itself in the form of bags under my eyes. Both my aunt and my mother kept telling me to go home and get some sleep, but I refused because I knew that when he finally realized that he was dying that he would call out for me... And should I not be there when he did, I would never be able to forgive myself.
The hour came and he called out as I had expected. I didn't expect for him to abruptly lean forward and pull me to him for one last hug. For a man who was dying, he was still surprisingly strong. He was in a lot of pain and tears flowed from his eyes as he told me he loved me and was going to miss me. His words were rudely interrupted by a spasming pain. He was in the final stages of renal failure, which despite his efforts to hide, looked excruciating. He stared past me. "What do you see grandpa?" "Nothing."
I instructed the hospice nurse to increase his Roxanol and he eventually went under. He would come out once more to see an old friend, but ultimately spent the next two days in a drug induced coma. Friday morning my family and I were in the lobby waiting for the attendants to turn my grandfather over to help drain the sputum from his lungs when the hospice nurse called us in to tell us he was about to pass. Although my family thought he was still alive, I believe he waited until we were out of the room to die.
With my mother on the way and the rest of my family out in the hall, I helped the hospice nurse dress the body of the man I once saw as a god. After crossing his arms on his chest, I felt a strange need for some sort of ritual to say goodbye. I lacked the silver dollars for the ferryman, so I decided on placing one last Hershey's bar in his front pocket, and then wrote his obituary for those who were following his status online:
At 12:55 pm September 23rd 2011, a marvelous expression of the universe in the form of a man passed away. He was my grandfather in name and my father in heart. He was a god amongst men and my best friend. The tears that I weep are tears of joy because I know he is no longer in pain. I am proud of you grandpa, I love you, miss you, and will never forget you.The following weeks I periodically stayed in his house trying to determine what I was taking to be stored at my friend's house, what was to be given to loved ones, and what I had to walk away from. It was during this time when I was preparing to leave that I found myself very lonely. I walked to bars to drink the pain away. I reached out to friends and acquaintances telling them that our time to hang out was narrowing, but almost everyone was too involved with their own lives and had no time.
To make matters worse, I couldn't see my nephews whenever I wanted to anymore because they had moved into the bungalow behind my sister's boyfriend's house. And to put it frankly, he is a cock-sucker. I have a dream that one day I will say hi and he will do the adult thing, and say hi back. Then my step father came back and I could no longer stay at my mother's because he has a problem with anyone staying in their four bedroom house. So I had no choice but to stay at my deceased grandfather's house, which by this time had been readied for the upcoming estate sale. All the cupboards were emptied: plates, cups and glasses were all laid out on tables. All the furniture was pushed into the front room, books stacked against the walls, and several of my childhood toys and memories were all on display.
I stayed there a week knowing that it was all going to be scavenged by vultures at the estate sale. And since the cable was disconnected the very day after he died, I had nothing but these relics of our past to occupy my time with. I did a lot of staring at walls when I wasn't going through old photographs or deciding what things I was going to have to leave behind. And during that time I thought a lot about my grandpa, who he was and why. But being alone in a time like this is unhealthy, so I turned to someone who had recently expressed an interest in hanging out before I left: my friend's little sister.
We had hung out together in the company of my buddy and his wife. On the weekends as my time in Banning would have been ending, we all hung out during the weekends. But during the week I was lonely and we started texting each other and hanging out on our own time. Unfortunately she had a boyfriend, who was pretty much obsessed with her and would want to tag along when we hung out. I had no intention of doing anything other than the usual video games, drinking, and smoking so it wasn't a big deal except for the fact that he would almost always get drunk, start an argument with her and just ruin the mood. For this I named him Emo Care Bear, and other than his drunk outbursts and the fact that he would to try to push hugs on me, I liked him.
Emo Care Bear, or ECB for short was even invited to party with me and my buddy's sister when I was house sitting Nash's house. We drank together but I noticed ECB was on a mission to get drunk. I tried to get him to slow down but ECB was hell-bent on making an ass out of himself. And he didn't disappoint. First he managed to wander into my friend's bedroom. I told him to get out, and he didn't listen. The bouncer in me was about to come out, but then he finally listened to reason and thankfully I didn't have to escort him out in an arm bar. He spent the rest of the evening and the following day projectile vomiting. Two days later when I wanted company and drinks again, I didn't invite him back. Instead Chip joined us and we drank the night away listening to Stan Getz.
Back at my grandfather's house she continued to text me everyday. She suggested we could hang out in the graveyard. That day I couldn't do it but said maybe tomorrow. We decided we would dress up as goths, get a bottle of wine and read poetry in the cemetery the following day. When I went to pick her up at her father's I was stunned. She looked beautiful, like a model. She was in some sort of black bodice, with a black tutu like skirt. Long black leather boots laced up to her knees, while black feathers dangled from her ears stood in stark contrast to her alabaster skin. Her eyes were a piercing green as she chastised me for not having my outfit on. It was almost too to much take in.
We hopped the stone wall near the gates and stuck to the shadows. She wasn't wearing her glasses so I was especially vigilant for both our sakes. I laid my coat down for us to sit on and poured us our wine. We talked and joked about how goth we were until the bottle ran out and as we left I felt rather satisfied that done all this without being detected by the night watch. Later at the house she would ask me to smell her new scented lotions. This of course made me very nervous. Prior to seeing her all dressed up, I liked her, but only as a friend who I liked to box with and play video games. Now I realized what should have been obvious, she was a beautiful woman who was making time to get to know me.
"Smells like it's edible. Like peaches."
"It's mango passion. Now smell this one" she said as she rubbed it on her other arm.
"Smells like some sort of bread."
"It's cupcakes" she said. She started to rub the next lotion on her right leg. Now I was really nervous. I smelled it and recognized it as a very familiar smell, but couldn't place it.
"I know this one..." I drifted off to my eleventh grade summer when I spent two weeks in Minnesota visiting a friend who had moved there. "It reminds me of a girl I once knew."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Neither. Just a memory." I think she sensed my apprehension because she chose to wash off the other lotions and put the final one on her hand instead of her other leg.
"What's it smell like to you?" she asked. I hadn't the faintest, I was afraid to answer incorrectly.
"Tacos?"
"What?!?"
"Johnny's Sport Tacos in Mentone... I don't know, maybe a waitress there wore it?" I was too tired to even defend myself.
The next day my buddy woke me up to move my car and I couldn't find my keys. I ended up walking back to the tombstone where I knew I left them only to find they weren't there. This prompted one the best statuses I have posted on Facebook:
Scaling the walls of a cemetery to drink wine, read Spoon Rivers Anthology, and listen to Joy Division = So goth.
Walking back the next day to get your car keys from the grounds keeper = Not so much.
From that point on I knew I was in trouble, because I become clumsy, forgetful, and awkward when I really like a girl. And I was rapidly becoming all of these. We kept hanging out and as I figured it drew the suspicion of our friend the Emo Care Bear. ECB wrote me a letter about the Halloween Party I wanted to take her to, and he stated he wanted to go. This was not going to happen. I reassured him that nothing would happen to her there and that I would keep an eye on her at all times due to what my own brother had to done to the last girl I really liked. I debated telling her about ECB's letter, but in the end thought she should know. She said they had already hashed it out and things were all good, but I knew they weren't.
I told her that ECB's concern that I might encroach upon his territory were valid, that I did indeed like her, and that I had tried to fight it because it put a monkey wrench in my plans for relocation. She told me that has happened with a lot of her male friends, and I left feeling awkward and stupid for being just another who misread her. Once I got to my mother's I sent my buddy's sister a text because I just had to know if she saw me like I saw her. Her body language told me she liked me, but because I liked her, my analysis was compromised. I had to know or I would never sleep. After ten minutes of waiting she confessed that when I told her I was going to leave she felt physical pain in her chest...
This was all I needed to hear. Perhaps I won't be leaving for San Diego after all.
- Mildly Brilliant
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Good Bye "Divine Providence"
Forgive me dear non-existent reader, for I am about to sin. I am going to let this blog turn into the equivalent of a teenage girl's diary. Hell, it has already devolved into mediocre postings of semi-interesting videos, lame movie reviews, and doodles... No longer are the days when I posted of relevant political issues, drew my own comics, and hosted my own cartoon animations. And the reason is not the excuse that most have: no time. I have all the time in the world. Just no drive.
Perhaps it is outrage fatigue, maybe I am just getting old. But I am increasingly apathetic to the political process these days. And my personal life, well... All the flowery pedantic language in the world can't distract from the fact that it is a shit sandwich. Which, interestingly enough, was not invented by the Germans. So now I am forced to write about something base: My feelings. So pull up a chair doc, I am about to spill my guts all over this Italian sofa.
Another chapter in my life has come to a close. I sold my RV for a dollar. The good news is it was to a friend of a friend, so it is still in the family, so to speak. But I can't help but feel sad for an era bygone. Of course that era ended long before I signed the bill of sale. If I had to pinpoint it I would say it ended when my nephews moved out of the house I was stationed at. That was the true end of it, or at least the end of the limbo I found myself in for a year after I received my DUI. The events that would follow would put me in a state of emotional paralysis for about a year, but I will get to that later.
The era I am talking about started about six years ago. I had just came back to my childhood town with my tail tucked between my legs as a three year romantic relationship of mine came to an ugly end. After a series of failed temp jobs, I ended up doing pizza delivery, which at first, was very profitable. At that job I met a new group of people who had all known each other from high school. Even though I was much older, they welcomed me into their click and I spent many a night drinking and singing karaoke at the parties which were hosted by our RGM. He was very personable and outgoing, which is why I hated him at first. I thought his persona was fake, and it was. I know this because we are now close friends... he even attended my grandmother's funeral.
I mention him because in essence this era greatly involves him and his circle of friends which would become mine. Almost all my friends from high school were getting married, some even starting families--So I turned to a younger crowd... A crowd I knew that would enjoy and share in my bohemian ways. And for a while it was bliss. Sure work was mundane and remedial, but there was always some sort of an after party. I ultimately would come to living in the RV out in front of his house for a few months because it was closer to work, and I didn't have to drive home from his parties... I just walked across the lawn. At the height of it all I was dating a girl who could only be described as a nymphomaniac, which at first seemed fun, but eventually became the seeds of destruction for my bohemian paradise.
She ended up cheating on me with my boss's older brother, and it made things rough for everybody and I lost a lot of trust and respect for a few people. She would later try to make it up to me by agreeing to have a ménage à trois with this other girl in my beloved RV. Ironically, both were doing it to get on my good side in hopes of retaining me as their boyfriend. I had no such plans. Even though this all jaded me I still had this girl at work. Out of respect I will not name her, but I will say this: I loved her. I tried to court her for five years, and continued to hang out with her long after she was transfered and moved to the next city over. In fact, I was on my way home from to meet her at my RV for our Modern Warfare 2: Spec Ops ritual when I received my DUI. She was the one who picked me up from jail the next day.
Afterward we were closer than ever. She was over every night and I was just happy to be around her even though I knew nothing would come of it. Again bliss was shattered by another person I trusted when my own brother took it upon himself to feel her up (this is the most sanitized way I can describe what he did to her) while she was drunk and passed out.
Through eyes still hazy, I saw him dash into his room. Standing there I looked over at the door he had slammed shut. I glanced at her, she was zipping up her pants and buttoning up her shirt. How I reacted surprised everybody. I calmly walked over to the door and knocked. No answer. The door was locked. I should have kicked the door down. I should have dragged him out and done some "enhanced interrogation" techniques on him. But to my ever lasting shame, I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I was in shock. And it wasn't until we were about to leave that I started to get agitated. Even so, I elected not to kick the door down. Why? Simple: I was afraid.
My incarceration had awakened me to how abusive cops were, and I was afraid of going to jail. And we both had been drinking, and if we got caught fleeing the scene of a crime, namely me stomping my brother's face into oblivion, I would have another DUI to boot. So we awaited a while outside, and sobered up the best we could. I would see her a few more times after that, but we were never close again. I decided to stop chasing her, she would never trust me again, and I would never have a chance with her now. I pulled away, eventually ignoring her half-assed attempt to re-establish contact by texting me an update of her life: she had began a jogging regiment with a local drill sergeant. Painfully, I ignored it.
People talk about hitting rock bottom, it usually involves alcohol. In my case it did for one evening three days after my brother's transgression. I had just spoken to the sheriff's department about the incident, and had noticed a peculiarity: I felt nothing. I wasn't angry, sad, or happy. In fact, I had an inability to feel these emotions for longer than a second before it quickly faded into numbness.
But after a while it became obvious that I was emotionally numb, even for WASP standards, I decided to do the worst thing possible: drink profusely. The desired affect was achieved and the flood gates opened. My nephew described it like an amusement park ride from Hell. I was happy, laughing, chugging on my mug of straight warm vodka, when all of a sudden I remembered what my brother had done and went into a rage, punching doors and patio posts indiscriminately. My nephews tried to remind me we had neighbors. I was not having it.
Suddenly I went into catatonic despair, and started to muse aloud what might be the most painless way to kill myself. My nephew threatened to call my oldest and closest friend, Nash. That brought me back to reality... well sort of, and my nephew walked me back to my RV. I awoke the next day with an extremely vague recollection of the night prior, and had this nagging feeling I may have been out of control. I never got that drunk again, and cut my alcohol intake to almost zero. The next few months I would stare at the walls of my RV, hiding from the ugly reality that had become my life. My lawyer fucked up and as a result my license was restricted for a year. So I rarely left the property it was on. After reliving the DUI, the incident, and just past memories of my would be girlfriend and I hanging out in my RV; I couldn't stand to stay in my RV. I alternated staying between my grandfather's house and my mother's, occasionally returning to my RV when I needed time to myself.
After a week of being constantly inundated with hard rain, the RV sprang a leak in the roof that would destroy a lot of photographs: many of my father who had recently died. After getting sick from the mold and mildew that formed from the leaks, the RV was relegated to the status of a closet on wheels. I slept on the couch in my nephew's house and spent most of my time with them playing video games and biding my time until I regained my license. Life began to improve and I began to work from home. My nephews and I had company over a lot and despite minor hiccups, we were happy as a small family with our dog and two cats in the yard. Then we got the word that they would be moving into the guesthouse behind their mother's boyfriend's house across town. The house was to be vacated, and if not sold, rented out. The RV needed to go. Unfortunately, no insurance company would insure my RV after the DUI and I had $300+ in backed up registration fees, plus no money to smog it, so no one wanted to buy it. So after moping about my troubles on Facebook, a friend of a friend said she wanted it. So I gave it to her for a dollar. I didn't lose any money though, I paid nothing for it myself. It was the same situation, the lady before wasn't using it and couldn't afford to store it, so she gave it away.
Back then I joked that it was divine providence, I needed a roomier RV and this one had fallen into my lap. I even named it the "Divine Providence" which was settled on because of the irony of an Atheist claiming his fortunate find a "divine providence". The irony also wasn't lost that history was repeating itself. She was now in a new owner's stewardship and the rest of my former life lay in boxes, waiting to sold on E-bay, or in the garage sale this Friday. The other stuff I threw into the back of my car, to further be sorted, sold or thrown away. As I stood in the spot my RV had once been, I thought about how I have got to get down to the bare essentials: be able to live out of a backpack because I really have no place to stay long term, and I no longer have an RV to fall back on.
Perhaps it is outrage fatigue, maybe I am just getting old. But I am increasingly apathetic to the political process these days. And my personal life, well... All the flowery pedantic language in the world can't distract from the fact that it is a shit sandwich. Which, interestingly enough, was not invented by the Germans. So now I am forced to write about something base: My feelings. So pull up a chair doc, I am about to spill my guts all over this Italian sofa.
Another chapter in my life has come to a close. I sold my RV for a dollar. The good news is it was to a friend of a friend, so it is still in the family, so to speak. But I can't help but feel sad for an era bygone. Of course that era ended long before I signed the bill of sale. If I had to pinpoint it I would say it ended when my nephews moved out of the house I was stationed at. That was the true end of it, or at least the end of the limbo I found myself in for a year after I received my DUI. The events that would follow would put me in a state of emotional paralysis for about a year, but I will get to that later.
The era I am talking about started about six years ago. I had just came back to my childhood town with my tail tucked between my legs as a three year romantic relationship of mine came to an ugly end. After a series of failed temp jobs, I ended up doing pizza delivery, which at first, was very profitable. At that job I met a new group of people who had all known each other from high school. Even though I was much older, they welcomed me into their click and I spent many a night drinking and singing karaoke at the parties which were hosted by our RGM. He was very personable and outgoing, which is why I hated him at first. I thought his persona was fake, and it was. I know this because we are now close friends... he even attended my grandmother's funeral.
I mention him because in essence this era greatly involves him and his circle of friends which would become mine. Almost all my friends from high school were getting married, some even starting families--So I turned to a younger crowd... A crowd I knew that would enjoy and share in my bohemian ways. And for a while it was bliss. Sure work was mundane and remedial, but there was always some sort of an after party. I ultimately would come to living in the RV out in front of his house for a few months because it was closer to work, and I didn't have to drive home from his parties... I just walked across the lawn. At the height of it all I was dating a girl who could only be described as a nymphomaniac, which at first seemed fun, but eventually became the seeds of destruction for my bohemian paradise.
She ended up cheating on me with my boss's older brother, and it made things rough for everybody and I lost a lot of trust and respect for a few people. She would later try to make it up to me by agreeing to have a ménage à trois with this other girl in my beloved RV. Ironically, both were doing it to get on my good side in hopes of retaining me as their boyfriend. I had no such plans. Even though this all jaded me I still had this girl at work. Out of respect I will not name her, but I will say this: I loved her. I tried to court her for five years, and continued to hang out with her long after she was transfered and moved to the next city over. In fact, I was on my way home from to meet her at my RV for our Modern Warfare 2: Spec Ops ritual when I received my DUI. She was the one who picked me up from jail the next day.
Afterward we were closer than ever. She was over every night and I was just happy to be around her even though I knew nothing would come of it. Again bliss was shattered by another person I trusted when my own brother took it upon himself to feel her up (this is the most sanitized way I can describe what he did to her) while she was drunk and passed out.
"What the fuck?!?" she yelled out, startling me awake.
Through eyes still hazy, I saw him dash into his room. Standing there I looked over at the door he had slammed shut. I glanced at her, she was zipping up her pants and buttoning up her shirt. How I reacted surprised everybody. I calmly walked over to the door and knocked. No answer. The door was locked. I should have kicked the door down. I should have dragged him out and done some "enhanced interrogation" techniques on him. But to my ever lasting shame, I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I was in shock. And it wasn't until we were about to leave that I started to get agitated. Even so, I elected not to kick the door down. Why? Simple: I was afraid.
My incarceration had awakened me to how abusive cops were, and I was afraid of going to jail. And we both had been drinking, and if we got caught fleeing the scene of a crime, namely me stomping my brother's face into oblivion, I would have another DUI to boot. So we awaited a while outside, and sobered up the best we could. I would see her a few more times after that, but we were never close again. I decided to stop chasing her, she would never trust me again, and I would never have a chance with her now. I pulled away, eventually ignoring her half-assed attempt to re-establish contact by texting me an update of her life: she had began a jogging regiment with a local drill sergeant. Painfully, I ignored it.
People talk about hitting rock bottom, it usually involves alcohol. In my case it did for one evening three days after my brother's transgression. I had just spoken to the sheriff's department about the incident, and had noticed a peculiarity: I felt nothing. I wasn't angry, sad, or happy. In fact, I had an inability to feel these emotions for longer than a second before it quickly faded into numbness.
This must be what it feel like to not have latin blood" I thought.
But after a while it became obvious that I was emotionally numb, even for WASP standards, I decided to do the worst thing possible: drink profusely. The desired affect was achieved and the flood gates opened. My nephew described it like an amusement park ride from Hell. I was happy, laughing, chugging on my mug of straight warm vodka, when all of a sudden I remembered what my brother had done and went into a rage, punching doors and patio posts indiscriminately. My nephews tried to remind me we had neighbors. I was not having it.
Fuck the neighbors!!! Fuck them all!!! I am an American Goddamnit, and I'm going to sit on my front porch and enjoy myself, because I pay taxes, and I vote, and I am a Goddamn American!!!
Suddenly I went into catatonic despair, and started to muse aloud what might be the most painless way to kill myself. My nephew threatened to call my oldest and closest friend, Nash. That brought me back to reality... well sort of, and my nephew walked me back to my RV. I awoke the next day with an extremely vague recollection of the night prior, and had this nagging feeling I may have been out of control. I never got that drunk again, and cut my alcohol intake to almost zero. The next few months I would stare at the walls of my RV, hiding from the ugly reality that had become my life. My lawyer fucked up and as a result my license was restricted for a year. So I rarely left the property it was on. After reliving the DUI, the incident, and just past memories of my would be girlfriend and I hanging out in my RV; I couldn't stand to stay in my RV. I alternated staying between my grandfather's house and my mother's, occasionally returning to my RV when I needed time to myself.
After a week of being constantly inundated with hard rain, the RV sprang a leak in the roof that would destroy a lot of photographs: many of my father who had recently died. After getting sick from the mold and mildew that formed from the leaks, the RV was relegated to the status of a closet on wheels. I slept on the couch in my nephew's house and spent most of my time with them playing video games and biding my time until I regained my license. Life began to improve and I began to work from home. My nephews and I had company over a lot and despite minor hiccups, we were happy as a small family with our dog and two cats in the yard. Then we got the word that they would be moving into the guesthouse behind their mother's boyfriend's house across town. The house was to be vacated, and if not sold, rented out. The RV needed to go. Unfortunately, no insurance company would insure my RV after the DUI and I had $300+ in backed up registration fees, plus no money to smog it, so no one wanted to buy it. So after moping about my troubles on Facebook, a friend of a friend said she wanted it. So I gave it to her for a dollar. I didn't lose any money though, I paid nothing for it myself. It was the same situation, the lady before wasn't using it and couldn't afford to store it, so she gave it away.
Back then I joked that it was divine providence, I needed a roomier RV and this one had fallen into my lap. I even named it the "Divine Providence" which was settled on because of the irony of an Atheist claiming his fortunate find a "divine providence". The irony also wasn't lost that history was repeating itself. She was now in a new owner's stewardship and the rest of my former life lay in boxes, waiting to sold on E-bay, or in the garage sale this Friday. The other stuff I threw into the back of my car, to further be sorted, sold or thrown away. As I stood in the spot my RV had once been, I thought about how I have got to get down to the bare essentials: be able to live out of a backpack because I really have no place to stay long term, and I no longer have an RV to fall back on.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Movie Review for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Eight years ago when I saw a preview for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie come out, I peed myself just a little. As a child, I loved the ride, the song, and the general idea of being a pirate, so I couldn't wait for the movie to come out. Still, in the back of my mind, I was aware of what Disney does to movies, so I didn't have too high of expectations. The movie turned out to be what all us kids inside always dreamt about: buccaneers, swashbuckling swordplay, daring rescues, romance and adventure on the high seas... Plus Johnny Depp.
Of course it had it minor hiccups, Orlando Bloom's character was, for lack of better words, a complete douche, and two men managed to pull a capsized dingy with a giant air bubble underwater... somehow. It still was a good movie and it had a decent and easy to follow plot: Cursed Aztec gold, undead pirates, young love, and the quintessential villainous pirate Captain Barbosa, as played masterfully by Geoffrey Rush. I didn't even mind the CGI. But after going from feats of semi-plausibility (often explained by supernatural conditions in the first Pirates) to Jack somersaulting from across a ravine while strapped to a pole and his knee caps somehow don't launch into the stratosphere... To seeing how many laws of physics can we break while countless pirates swing between two ships circling a Maelstrom to cross swords with immortal monsters while simultaneously performing a wedding--I didn't have that high of expectations for the fourth installment.
With this in mind, an old friend and I went see the midnight showing. That said, I was still let down. The elements are all there, the familiar musical score by Hans Zimmer, the iconic characters like Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbosa, Master Gibbs are there help you feel at home, but it is like returning home after you left for college... At first you are nostalgic, but then you realize it is just the remnants of an era... long gone. The movie is about Captain Jack Sparrow and seemingly everybody else's quest for the Fountain of Youth, as you might have guessed, it comes off contrived and convoluted, even more so than the second and third movies, but without Bill Nighy (Davy Jones) to offer up an intriguing antagonist.
Instead you have the dreaded Blackbeard (Ian McShane) whose most interesting scene is his introduction where he comes out with burning hemp wicks in his beard, something the historical Edward Teach was known for. Then he points his sword which apparently animates the ropes of the ship, which is never explained why or how, and turns them against the crew. Teach also has magic voodoo powers and turns his crew into zombies that can't be killed, which like the sword and why I paid $11 to see this movie, has no explanation.
Penelope Cruz plays the daughter Blackbeard could give exactly two flying shits about, and is a stereotypical hot tempered and traitorous Latin bitch, unlike every other movie I have ever seen her in. And to fill the slot of the obligatory douche character, a slot previously filled by Orlando Bloom, is a two dimensional missionary played by some jack off I am too lazy to look up, who, incidentally, is trying to save Black Beard's soul. The only cool element of the movie is that they portrayed mermaids as what they were in the minds of the ancient greeks: monsters. Of course, Disney finds a way to ruin that by having one of the mermaids fall in love with Massengill boy in an onscreen romance that an upwards of maybe three people in the theatre gave a shit about.
I found myself wondering when it was going to be over and my friend almost fell asleep. And most tellingly, at the end of the movie no one in the audience clapped. All in all, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a movie you might want to see at matinee or on Blu-Ray. I give it a C-
Of course it had it minor hiccups, Orlando Bloom's character was, for lack of better words, a complete douche, and two men managed to pull a capsized dingy with a giant air bubble underwater... somehow. It still was a good movie and it had a decent and easy to follow plot: Cursed Aztec gold, undead pirates, young love, and the quintessential villainous pirate Captain Barbosa, as played masterfully by Geoffrey Rush. I didn't even mind the CGI. But after going from feats of semi-plausibility (often explained by supernatural conditions in the first Pirates) to Jack somersaulting from across a ravine while strapped to a pole and his knee caps somehow don't launch into the stratosphere... To seeing how many laws of physics can we break while countless pirates swing between two ships circling a Maelstrom to cross swords with immortal monsters while simultaneously performing a wedding--I didn't have that high of expectations for the fourth installment.
With this in mind, an old friend and I went see the midnight showing. That said, I was still let down. The elements are all there, the familiar musical score by Hans Zimmer, the iconic characters like Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbosa, Master Gibbs are there help you feel at home, but it is like returning home after you left for college... At first you are nostalgic, but then you realize it is just the remnants of an era... long gone. The movie is about Captain Jack Sparrow and seemingly everybody else's quest for the Fountain of Youth, as you might have guessed, it comes off contrived and convoluted, even more so than the second and third movies, but without Bill Nighy (Davy Jones) to offer up an intriguing antagonist.
Instead you have the dreaded Blackbeard (Ian McShane) whose most interesting scene is his introduction where he comes out with burning hemp wicks in his beard, something the historical Edward Teach was known for. Then he points his sword which apparently animates the ropes of the ship, which is never explained why or how, and turns them against the crew. Teach also has magic voodoo powers and turns his crew into zombies that can't be killed, which like the sword and why I paid $11 to see this movie, has no explanation.
Penelope Cruz plays the daughter Blackbeard could give exactly two flying shits about, and is a stereotypical hot tempered and traitorous Latin bitch, unlike every other movie I have ever seen her in. And to fill the slot of the obligatory douche character, a slot previously filled by Orlando Bloom, is a two dimensional missionary played by some jack off I am too lazy to look up, who, incidentally, is trying to save Black Beard's soul. The only cool element of the movie is that they portrayed mermaids as what they were in the minds of the ancient greeks: monsters. Of course, Disney finds a way to ruin that by having one of the mermaids fall in love with Massengill boy in an onscreen romance that an upwards of maybe three people in the theatre gave a shit about.
I found myself wondering when it was going to be over and my friend almost fell asleep. And most tellingly, at the end of the movie no one in the audience clapped. All in all, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a movie you might want to see at matinee or on Blu-Ray. I give it a C-
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The President's Strange Love: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Catfood.
"Social Security cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be."
--Representative Eric Cantor (R)
Pay attention folks, they're going for it for real this time. And they will succeed in taking a chunk out of it, because they have something this time around that they have never had before... An opponent that refuses to lead.
As President of the United States and de facto leader of the Democratic party, Barack Obama has repeatedly let one chamber of the legislative branch, Congress, frame every debate, and every news cycle. He continually compromises with opposition that claims they would support his
The Republican party threatened to shut down the government unless the Democrats cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Senator Jon Kyl even went as far as to claim that abortions are "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does." How the fuck do you lose this argument?!? If you're response is anything other than "Jon Kyl is obviously lying. Abortions attribute for 3% of Planned Parenthood's medical services and the separate wing that handles abortions is privately funded because the Hyde Amendment strictly forbids the use of tax-payer money for abortions... And anyone who tells you otherwise is demonstrably lying, so when they shut down the government, it will be over a lie." If your argument is anything other than that, then clearly you don't want to win this argument.
Instead, the Republicans received seven billion dollars more in cuts to programs that help the poor and elderly than their initial $32 billion demand, and Washington D.C. our state capital is now denied access to Planned Parenthood. Social Security Reform is next on the agenda and the President's strange love of compromising our social services in the name of getting approval from those who would argue with their mailboxes, is quite frankly, making me really nervous.
- Mildly Brilliant
Friday, July 09, 2010
Brain Power
I know these stories aren't exactly new, but since they follow in the vein of what my story is about I thought I'd post them actually for me to reference..
Via the The Wall Street Journal of all papers...:
And this one also caught my eye...
Via the good folks at Popular Science:
Via the The Wall Street Journal of all papers...:
For the last four years, Henry Markram has been building a biologically accurate artificial brain. Powered by a supercomputer, his software model closely mimics the activity of a vital section of a rat's gray matter.
Dubbed Blue Brain, the simulation shows some strange behavior. The artificial "cells" respond to stimuli and suddenly pulse and flash in spooky unison, a pattern that isn't programmed but emerges spontaneously.
[snip]
At the Lausanne lab one recent afternoon, a pink sliver of rat brain sat in a beaker containing a colorless liquid. The neurons in the brain slice were still alive and actively communicating with each other. Nearby, a modified microscope recorded some of this inner activity in another brain slice. "We're intercepting the electro-chemical messages" in the cells, then testing the software against it for accuracy, said Dr. Markram.
The rat's NCC has 10,000 neurons, and it takes the power of one desktop computer to mimic the behavior of a single neuron. To model the entire NCC, Dr. Markram relies on an IBM computer that can perform 22.8 trillion operations a second. This enables the simulation to be rendered as a three-dimensional object. Thus, when Blue Brain is running, its deepest inner workings are seen in astonishing detail, in the form of a 3-D simulation that unfolds on a computer screen.
In a darkened room, Blue Brain displays a virtual NCC as a column-like structure, its blue color signifying a state of rest. When zapped by a simulated electrical current, the neurons start to signal to each other and their wiring progressively sparks to life different colors. Tests indicate the same areas light up in the model as do in a real rat's brain, suggesting that Blue Brain is accurate, says Dr. Markram.
And this one also caught my eye...
Via the good folks at Popular Science:
Srinivasan explains that the chip is sending electric pulses through the needle into the brain slice, which is passing them on to the screen we´re watching. â€The difference in the waves´ modulation reflects the signals sent out by the brain slice,†he says. â€And they´re almost identical in frequency and pattern to the pulses sent by the chip.†Put more simply, this iron-gray wafer about a millimeter square is talking to living brain cells as though it were an actual body part.
Ted Berger, Srinivasan´s boss and the mastermind behind the tangle of coils and electrodes, has arranged this demonstration to provide a small but profound glimpse into the future of brain science. The chip´s ability to converse with live cells is a dramatic first step, he believes, toward an implantable machine that fluently speaks the language of the brain-a machine that could restore memories in people with brain damage or help them make new ones.
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