wow part 2

i didn't think thursday's demonstration of doublethink could be beat. i was wrong. a uvsc officer knocking on my door saturday morning further testified how far down the path of paranoia and prevarications a (drug-induced?) distortion of reality had taken the person.

it's quite sad... and rather annoying. a nice talk with another officer this morning cleared up the confusion on my end. he didn't buy the nonsensical fabrications and just wanted to see if i might know what might be causing the person's fantasy.

i guess this is what i get for being a nice guy and a caring friend.

i never in my life thought things would turn out like this. from now on i really need to listen to my friends better.

wow

and i mean wow... it's like 1984, but it's 2005. not oceania, but right here in happy valley. i actually witnessed doublethink tonight. there is definitely also some foucault that could be applied here, but i don't know enough to say anything.

madness.

craziness.

lies.

truth.

fantasy.

illusion.

insanity.

threats.

all bundled in my little drama.

a little exciting, a little unnerving, but mostly liberating.


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"yeah, it's psychological, but it's probably also that metashitical curse thingy you mentioned before" - my buddy tory

four years ago

technology ruined everything. there was no numbered placard to hold in my hands. no ruler behind my head declaring my height. no remaining ink residue on my fingers. instead, everything was done digitally. the photograph was instant with my name and number digitally linked. even my fingerprints were taken digitally. thin glass covering a red glow replaced the ink and paper.


rewind 3 months to early july. i had just finished painting a few new buildings in the lakeridge apartment complex behind walmart and was cutting across uvsc to finish up a building in the stonycreek complex further north. it was the same routine. it's a stop sign, not a yield sign. i'm going to have to right you up for that. i know it's in the middle of summer and you are the only person who has driven on this road in the past hour. i know i'm an asshole. i'm also going to write you up for driving left of center because i had my left testicle removed in a freak accident with a sheep. sign here. it doesn't admit of guilt, but only says that you agree to go to the orem courts in the next 5 to 14 days.
mistake #1 - cutting through uvsc

14 days later i'm at the orem courts to pay the pair of tickets. the old, bee-hive haired lady tells me that they have no record of my ticket and i should try back in a week. a week later she tells me the same thing. she's my angel. a messenger from god. my son, where are they that condemn thee? for your righteousness i am forgiving you of your traffic violations. go and violate no more. i drive home and forget all about it.

mistake #2 - i'm a sinner (aren't we all?)

fast forward to october 26, 2001. i had just broken up with my pseudo-fiance and spent the week in bed with the flu. it's late, i'm feeling a little bit better, and i want a burrito. thinking i'm not going to leave my car, i set off for taco bell in board shorts and a blue aloha shirt. just before i reach taco bell, i'm alerted by some red and blue flashing lights behind me. speeding. damn. i pull over alongside the curb on freedom boulevard (where i would later be hit by a semi three years later)

do you know what the speed limit is? i had no idea. do you know how fast you were going? i don't know that either. where were you headed? i want a burrito. can i see your license and registration please? i hand it over and wait.

and wait.

and wait.

eventually the provo cop returns. he's a nice fellow. just under six feet tall. shaved head to hide his receeding hair line. no visible tattoos or scars. asks if i have any unpaid traffic tickets.

part of being forgiven is forgetting the transgression. god forgave me (or so i thought) and i forgot. the nice provo cop informs me that there is a warrant issued for my arrest for failing to appear in court. instantly i remember. oh shit. i tell my story.

the nice provo police officer tells me that if it was a provo-issued warrant, that he'd tell me to hit the court the next day to clear things up and send me on my way. however, he adds that because it was issued by the uvsc/orem police, he'd have to contact them about the warrant. furthermore, he tells me that because uvsc cops are all sadistic assholes, they would most likely want to book me into the utah county jail.

mistake #3 - living in happy valley

once again, i wait. and wait. and wait. eventually another police car pulls up to join our little get-together. guess who steps out...

you guessed right. the same asshole who issue me two traffic violations and was too stupid to file them in on time. before i know it, i'm handcuffed and hauled off to jail.

it is true that you get a phone call (or at least they let me have one). hey dad! guess what? i'm in jail and need to get bailed out. (pause) i'm not joking. i'm telling the truth. (more disbelief). dad, i wouldn't joke about this. (pause) ok... i joked about this last week, but this time i'm not lying... eventually he believes me and bails me out.

that is where part one of this story ends and part two begins... my quest for compensation.

capital punishment part 4

forget everything else i said about capital punishment. it's all filler. it all supports and reinforces the system in effect. arguments of innocence only justify a system that kills the guilty. arguments of race and class distinction only justify a system that kills with equality. arguments of money will only set up a system that kills more cost efficiently. arguments of life without parol only set up a system that takes longer to kill. all these arguments miss the point.

so what is the point? why is capital punishment wrong? the answer is in capital punishment. the answer is in why we want these people to die.

capital punishment exists because we believe there is something special in human life. a right to life. when someone commits murder, they deprive a person of her essential right. we say no! to murder because we say yes! to life.

the problem is that capital punishment denies the very thing we were affirming. the death penalty denies an essential human right to life. it denies the universal human right to life by claiming that some people do not have this, that it does not apply to them. by doing so, we devalue humanity by denying that a person necessarily has this right to live. instead, the value of a human life is not essential, but is decided by others. humanity becomes arbitrary and meaningless.

the death penalty claims that human life is nothing special. it denies the very thing it is supposed to be affirming. it's a hypocritical lie.

arguments against capital punishment need to do more than say "no!" it needs to cry a resounding "yes!" the fight against the death penalty needs to accompany a fight for life, an affirmation for the universal right of humanity. without this affirmation, the fight only leads to further injustices against humanity.

the cries of no and yes should not stop at capital punishment. the affirmations of humanity should push us fight against other institutions that deny the rights of humanity, particularly the prison system. this is however a much larger and much more complicated issue, so i'm going to end it here right now.

spep day 3

another day at the book exhibit, except this time i leave with a dozen or so free books

mike shaw on foucault, and plato.

angela davis on slavery, capital punishment, prison, and the abolition of the three. excellent!

another party with drunk philosophers, professors, and colleagues.

me soooooo tired.

spep day 2

black feminine philosophy is placed on the margins of philosophy because western philosophy is based and seen through it's foundation of white males - followed by an entertaining and heated question and answer session

abu ghraib, homophobia, gender, and derrida - interesting, but too monotone to keep me awake.

helping out at the book exhibit.

the transformation of capitalistic social classes based on commodification to classes based on idealistic consumption - very interesting.

dinner with my friend alden and his wife who are visiting from purdue.

drunken party at my professors' house.

spep day 1

it's the society for phenomenology and existential philosophy

today i spent most the morning helping out with the book exhibit and then attended a presentation on the idea presented in reshaping reason: toward the new philosophy. it was pretty much seemed like wittgenstein with a hegelian teleology... which probably wouldn't pass a wittgensteinian criticism. i wanted to say that, but of course i didn't want to look stupid among a bunch of contintental scholars who still probably know a lot more about wittgenstein than me.

i'd write more, but i'm tired as hell and have a date in a few minutes.

mysleep

i slept eight hours last night.
it was great
everyone should give it a try.

i joined the myspace world.
i'm cool now.
everyone should give it a try.

dilemma

you think about it
for a couple weeks. you know
you should, but don't know if you are
ready for the consequences.
as much as it will
suck, you do it because
you care. because you do
not want to see what matters
to you hurt. the consequences
come just as expected. you prepared
for it, but it still hurts. you
hope they will understand,
but maybe they never
will. still, you know
you did what you should
have. you put on a smile and pray
for the best.

another post not worth reading (or writing)

it's late. i haven't posted anything worth reading for almost a month. i'm just too damn tired. i'm on my seventh night in a row being up past 2am. two of these being up until 6am. five of these nights have been due to writing papers and studying. the other two were due to stupidity, hanging out late with friends when i should have been catching up on some much needed sleep. stupid. i know.

i've got plenty of stories to tell, but no energy to do it. i gave up the dog piss months ago, only to replace it with coffee. rock stars have been replaced with vanilla lattes. monsters have been replaced with frappaccinos. aluminum cans replaced with paper cups and cardboard sleeves. one addiction for another. at least it tastes better now.

in queue is a story of walmart and my quest for dust pan. i hate walmart. a lot. i mean i really hate walmart. i've still got part four of my posts on capital punishment. the only post that is worth telling on the subject. the part of capital punishment that not only denies it's inhumanity and celebrates our own humanity. i've got a sweet and nauseating story of my recent visit to the american red cross. loving through suffering. i've got some thoughts on friedrich nietzsche and his declaration that 'god is dead'. i've got something i want to say about kierkegaards knight of faith.

i've got a whole lot to say. i have stories i want to tell. i just don't have the time. instead, i sit here, taking a break from my midterm on nietzsche's birth of tragedy, and write about not having time to write. i stay up complaining about not getting sleep.

i really need to sleep, but it seems like such a waste of time. you fall asleep, you wake up, you miss out on life. there is no growing while you sleep. there is no learning. there is no experiencing the world. it's not living, it's temporarily dying, and resurrected the next morning. only with me, there is no stone to roll away. no angels to celebrate my return to life. only the persitant beeping of an alarm clock. in a few minutes i will be dead. in a few hours i will rise again. it's the cyclical repetition of hindu reincarnation, only each life is the same. my own. just slightly different. slightly older. slightly more experienced. and slightly ready to give it another try.

i think i'm dying

"the living is merely a type of dead, and a very rare type"
-friedrich nietzsche


somehow i managed to stay out until now without falling asleep. another night like this will be the end of me.

now for that much needed temporary death.

10,000

it looks like i've passed the 10,000 hits since march mark recently.

and only 7 people have signed the guestbook.

you're breakin my balls people.

too damn tired to write anything substansive.

maybe i'll post some bitchin poems if i can get permission.

or maybe not.

i need to write a christian ethics paper.

i need to sleep.

eenie-meenie-mynee-moe.

paper wins.

damn.

bumper sticker of the day

and the award goes to...


"how many iraqis to the gallon does your car get?"

fear and trembling

i'm reading soren kierkegaard's fear and trembling for my philosophy through literature class. just read this passage, which gave me something to think about...

I have seen the dreadful before my own eyes, I do not flee from it timorously, but I know very well that, although I advance to meet it, my courage is not the courage of faith, nor anything comparable to it. I am unable to make the movements of faith, I cannot shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd, for me that is an impossibility. ..but I do not boast of it. I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object; but I do not believe, this courage I lack. For me the love of God is, both in a direct and in an inverse sense, incommensurable with the whole of reality. I am not cowardly enough to whimper and complain, but neither am I deceitful enough to deny that faith is something much higher. I can well endure living in my way, I am joyful and content, but my joy is not that of faith, and in comparison with that it is unhappy. I do not trouble God with my petty sorrows, the particular does not trouble me, I gaze only at my love, and I keep its virginal flame pure and clear. Faith is convinced that God is concerned about the least things. I am content in this life with being married to the left hand, faith is humble enough to demand the right hand -- for that this is humility I do not deny and shall never deny.

school

just as it happens every semester, i'm finding myself behind in my classes. on monday i walked into my christian ethics class only to discover that i had a 7-10 page paper due. luckily, since i've been busy helping out with the religious studies program this week, my professor gave me an extension until friday... that means i probably won't be even start it until late thursday night.

in queue, i've also got a 6-8 page take-home midterm for my ancient philosophy class due on thursday, a nietzche take-home midterm and ancient philosophy paper due a week from today, a nietzche paper due in a couple weeks, as well as several journals for my philosophy through literature and nietzsche classes which i've gotten behind on.

thank god for my epistemology class which is only graded with attendance and a final.


what i need is a roommate who is studying as well to give me some motivation. it's togh when i'm the only person in my apartment ever doing homework. i need the example of a study-mate.

ancient chinese proverb

give a man a fish and feed him for a day,
teach a man to fish and watch him starve to death because he can't afford a fishing pole and bait.

derrida, plato, socrates, phaedrus

i finished my first full paper of the semester yesterday. my head is still too cloudy to figure out if it is any good or not. anyways check it out

plato’s phaedrus and the ambiguity of rhetoric and the dialectic method

i think i'm dying

i have been suffering from the worst insomnia. i haven't gotten more than a couple hours of sleep any night this week.

either i'm very tired or i'm very sick right now. probably both, but feeling the latter.

if i don't make it through the night, i want all my stuff buried with me so nobody will ever get to use it.

i can't win

i was working on a paper last night when my friend cassidy came in to visit. she was in tears because her boyfriend had just gotten his mission call and she was going to miss him. she came and sat down on the couch by me and i gave her a big hug. i held her and listened to her sob story. we talked for a bit, i told some jokes, and she was smiling again.

while we were sitting and talking, my roommate joe was in the kitchen and asked her if she wanted a bowl of icecream. he scooped us up a couple bowls and went back to whatever he was doing.

after we were done talking, cassidy thanked me, went back to her apartment, and told her roommates how sweet joe was for scooping her up a bowl of icecream and how lucky her roommate was for having him as a boyfriend!

proof again that girls who say they want guys who are good listeners and supportive are full of *it. girls only want guys who will fullfill their physical needs: food, shelter, and sex.

nine inch nails last night!!!!

the last time nine inch nails came to salt lake, i was on a plane flying home after serving my mission in hawaii. that was five years ago. trent reznor's industrial machine had been my favorite band since i first heard them in the eigth grade. i had waited seven years to see them and ended up missing their show by a day.

after waiting another five years, my dream finally came true. words cannot describe how awesome last night's show was. however, bitchin! comes pretty close. trent reznor and his crew put on one hell of a show. just short of two hours, they covered over twenty songs - each one of them full of energy, setting all of us in the crowd crazy.

when the band left the stage and the arena lights returned, i was in a daze of sweat and adrenaline.

of this show, trent reznor said on his website, "we have a few markets with shitty ticket sales, last night in slc being one of them - but the crowd more than made up for it. ended up having a good time and a rewarding show." seventeen years of waiting was definitely rewarded for me.


the set list was:

pinion
love is not enough
you know what you are?
the line begins to blur
march of the pigs
terrible lie
the frail
the wretched
closer
burn
gave up
eraser
right where it belongs
beside you in time
wish
sin
only
hurt
the hand that feeds
star fuckers inc.
head like a hole



i left the show worn out, dazed, dehydrated, voiceless, nearly deaf, and with a sore back, neck, and feet. damn it was great! i don't think i'll be ready for another rock concert for a while. instead, i'm now looking forward to a nice relaxing evening with iron & wine in a few weeks... a nice show that i can just sit back and enjoy.

i miss my brudder

i know i was often critical of him, but i really love my little brother. this morning he left my apartment, hopped on a plane, and flew off to live in virginia with my folks for a while.

as i was sitting in one of my classes, it suddenly hit me and this hollow empty feeling came over. he wasn't going to be around to talk with or chill with anymore. he was my best friend, but now he's not around.

my older brother moving out, going on a mission, my folks taking off to virigina... none of those ever made me homesick. bobby taking off did it for me.

the apartment just didn't feel the same when i came back today.

bummer. i'm sad.

nine inch nails tonight!!!!

got a couple hours of sleep in.

got my black on.

got the downward spiral blasting in the background.

got myself all giddy like a little boy on christmas eve.


----------------------

been waiting five years for this. review to come after the show.... or maybe tomorrow... you know how i am with these things lately... capital punishment part 4 will show up someday as well... i've been tired and busy so lay off!!!... i don't see you blogging everyday!!!.... oh yeah... well screw you too!!!

wow... i suck

friend 1 - "let's hang out today" - bailed out
friend 2 - "let's do this tonight" - nothing happened
friend 3 - "i'll give you a call" - never called
friend 4 - "call me" - didn't answer phone


ever feel like the world is a joke and your life is the butt of it?