Random Filler

I haven't been writing much lately.  This past month, I've been fortunate enough to go to a couple concerts, which means that the rest of my free time is spent working to make ends meet.  For right now I'm just posting an old poem I found while going through some old papers I wrote during my undergrad.  I have to send acknowledgements to Professor Burt, whose class I wrote this for.  She was always cool about letting me not show up for class so long as I e-mailed her my work.  For those who follow this blog, expect a piece in the near future regarding how to treat wait staff when you go out to eat.

The severity of its beautiful bass line permeates my soul with euphoric stabs of elegant style.

The lasting impression of ephemeral notes sets the model of a constantly conflicting mindset, where thoughts at lightning speed strike genuine points of genius lost in a general haze of apathetic assonance destined to denote the derangement that is reality.

The continuous search for empty spaces provides more time for the less than pervasive, lackluster lollygagging that institutes that insanity of mainlining the mainstream that exists in commercial consumption; ever clotting creativity.

It is the over-compensation, the over-analysis, and the ever-present redundancy of over-diagnosis.

An Introduction to the Simple Joys of a Mediocre Life

After reading through my first entry I decided that my second post should be a introduction.  As a recent graduate who has struggled to find any fulfillment in the job market, I find myself lost in what was supposed to be a world of opportunity.  I was supposed to be doing something that made me feel more significant, and so far I’ve found myself participating in medical studies, canvassing, assembling jewelry part time for various museum gift shops, and now waiting tables.

When I’m not busy serving food and booze to a customer base that’s as diverse as a bowl of cheerios (In a town that’s of the same category), I’m keeping up daily tasks.  It seems that the world with which I used to be so enchanted with has boiled down to lawn chairs, tennis balls, and tequila.  They were the only things on my shopping list the other day.  The only things that at the moment give me any semblance of calm when I’m not desperately trying to find a meaningful job in a city that doesn’t remind of a suburban hell where there’s nothing but white people, who measure their success by how much they can look and act like “everyone else.”

The truth is that I don’t really know where this blog is going but I hope to get some creative release out of it, insight some laughter, and hopefully get some conversation.  So here ends my introduction to what is, for the moment, a fairly menial life.  It’s already getting more interesting though.  I just added a straw hat to my shopping list.

Response to Dr. Johnson

Samuel Johnson used to say, "He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."  Tonight I have found myself thinking about how human attributes such as pain have changed since his time.  Obviously, coping methods have changed.  People have surpassed traditional forms of animalistic distraction such as drugs, alcohol, and sex and can now choose to be celebrity obsessed simply by watching CNN.  Beyond that, apathy runs rampant amongst people because it's simply less work not to care about the things in life that challenge us.  I, myself, am sometimes guilty of having an apathetic mindset, and have often been heard saying, "Shit happens, and either people deal with it or they don't, but if they worry about it, life will be harder no matter what the decision is."

While I still stand by the idea that there are people who worry too much, I am finding that people who become the "beast" to avoid pain are indulging in false pleasures that cannot be genuine because they're missing out on the counterpoint.  I think Dustin Hoffman put it best when he said, "After all, what would the world be like without Captain Hook?"  I like Peter Pan.  And I like the extra relief I get when after countless, shitty shifts at work, I can have a day laying by my friend's pool, not worrying about anything other than dropping my beer.

That being said, I can't say that I support real life human rights violators, whether they have a hook and mustache or not.

-I hate turning on the news to see that BP is ruining so much marine life that David Attenborough must be crying himself to sleep.

-I hate witnessing the disparity of wealth when I leave my comfortable apartment and pass dilapidated housing projects on my way to the library.

-I hate rude customers who let their children act and eat however and whatever they want.

However, the truth is that without all the rotten, nasty, malignant parts of life, we would all probably take happy, orgasmic, and delicious parts for granted more than what we already do.  I know that I would have never had the love that I do for palm trees, if I hadn't spent four shitty winters in Boston, staring at the multi-colored street slush.

If by chance all the pain of being a person becomes too much for me, I will still try to avoid permanent reversion to the "beast."  Now more than ever since I'm narcissistic enough to blog/vent about my own viewpoints and post them on the internet as a way to make other people listen to my bullshit.