THE SAD REALITY

THE SAD REALITY

Today I woke up realizing that my dream of attending Burning Man this year will not come to fruition, and that is depressing. I've known for a week or so that I would not be able to go, but its really sinking in right now. Something tugs at my heart, and I feel completely empty and barren. I don't think anyone can really comprehend the emotional waterfall that one goes through when they experience a sojourn like Burning Man. I'm going to cry now...

STUFF ON MY CAT

STUFF ON MY CAT

Now I can truly say that Stuff On My Cat is one of the funniest things on the web. I love cats, but there is something about them that just makes you want to stick markers, lighters, and cell phones on them...

FLAMING MOE'S

FLAMING MOE'S

When the weight of the world has got you down,
and you want to end your life.
Bills to pay, a dead end job,
and problems with the wife.
Well don't throw in the towel
cause there's a place right down the block.
Where you can drink your miseries away.
At fla-ming Moes. Where liquor in a mug will warm you like a hug.
Let's all go to flaming Moe's Flaming Moe's
And happiness is just a flaming Moe away.
Happiness is just a flaming Moe away

COLDPLAY LIVE

COLDPLAY LIVE


Coldplay does not disappoint in their amazing live performance. Chris Martin has the charisma, humility, and passion that is really inspiring to watch, he is Jim Morrisson, Tori Amos, and Bono all rolled up into one. It is really fun to watch an artist at the peak of his creation. The night was perfect, the full moon seemed to hang right above the stage, and provided an backlight to the performance. Johanna and I had amazing seats on the lawn, and although we were the only ones really dancing in our area, it did little to burst our bubble. The stage was really amazing, but it did not distract from the music. Their tribute to Johnny Cash was worth the price of admission in itself.

BAD KITTY!

shiver

SHIVER
So I look in your direction,
But you pay me no attention, do you.
I know you don’t listen to me.
’cause you say you see straight through me, don’t you.

On and on from the moment I wake,
To the moment I sleep,
I’ll be there by your side,
Just you try and stop me,
I’ll be waiting in line,
Just to see if you care.

Did you want me to change?
Well I change for good.
And I want you to know.
That you’ll always get your way,
I wanted to say,

Don’t you shiver? shiver, shiver

I’ll always be waiting for you,
So you know how much I need ya,
But you never even see me, do you?

And this is my final chance of getting you.

On and on from the moment I wake....
Did you want me to change? ...

Sing it loud and clear.
I’ll always be waiting for you.
Yeah I’ll always be waiting for you.
And it’s you I see, but you don’t see me.
And it’s you I hear, so loud and clear.
I sing it loud and clear.
And I’ll always be waiting for you,.
So I look in your direction,
But you pay me no attention,
And you know how much I need you,
But you never even seen me.

THIS TEMPORARY LIFE

THIS TEMPORARY LIFE
Nothing in this world is ever guaranteed. The preciousness of life, often taken for granted, is a gift we all need to cherish. I learned today that one of my biggest supporters here at work died from a fatal car accident this Friday. She died next to her husband. It's very tragic. I've known her for four years, and I can't remember a week since I started working here that she didn't stop by to see me or call me on the phone with her questions. She gave me the weirdest presents for Christmas, but I always appreciated it. Last time I saw her was last week, we were counting up votes from our recent election. I'm going to miss her accent, her messages in my answering machine. This has been a tough year for me, but death has a way of challenging me, forcing me to reasses my priorities, and set goals of what I want to accomplish in life.

IT'S A MAD MAD WORLD

WISDOM FROM TRAINSPOTTING

WISDOM FROM TRAINSPOTTING
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons.

So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.

BE GOOD

A WEEKEND IN PICTURES










BE GOOD
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be
shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind.
Think big anyway.
What you spend years building may
be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have
and you might get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE
Miranda July's "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is a film that with quiet confidence creates a fragile magic. It's a comedy about falling in love when, for you, love requires someone who speaks your rare emotional language. Yours is a language of whimsy and daring, of playful mind games and bold challenges. Hardly anybody speaks that language, the movie suggests -- only me, and you, and everyone we know, because otherwise we wouldn't bother knowing them.

As a description of a movie, I suppose that sounds maddening. An example: A young woman walks into a department store, and in the shoe department, she sees a young man who fascinates her. His hand is bandaged. She approaches him and essentially offers the gift of herself. He is not interested; he's going through a divorce and is afraid of losing his children. She asks him how he hurt his hand. "I was trying to save my life," he says. We've already seen how it happened: He covered his hand with lighter fluid and set it on fire to delight his two sons. He didn't think lighter fluid really burns you when you do that. He was wrong. He was thinking of rubbing alcohol.

Now imagine these two characters, named Christine (Miranda July) and Richard (John Hawkes) as they walk down the street. She suggests that the block they are walking down is their lives. And so now they are halfway down the street and halfway through their lives, and before long they will be at the end. It is impossible to suggest how poetic this scene is; when it's over, you think, that was a perfect scene, and no other scene can ever be like it.

Richard and Christine are at the center of the film, but through Richard's sons, we meet other characters. His 7-year-old is named Robby, and is played by Brandon Ratcliff, who read my review from Sundance and wrote me a polite and helpful letter in which he assured me he's as smart as an 11-year-old. In the movie, he visits an online sex chat room even though he knows nothing about sex. He knows enough about computers to sound like he does, however, by cutting and pasting words, and using open-ended questions. Asked what turns him on, he writes "poop," not because it does, but possibly because it is the only word he can spell that he thinks has something to do with the subject.

His 14-year-old brother Peter (Miles Thompson) is being persecuted by two girls in his class named Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend). They are intensely interested in oral sex, but unsure about its theory and technique. They decide to practice on Peter. I know this sounds perverse and explicit, and yet the fact is, these scenes play with an innocence and tact that is beyond all explaining. They are about what an embarrassment and curiosity sex is when you're old enough to know it exists, but too young to know how it's done and what it's for. They are much intrigued by a neighbor who is a dirty old man in theory, but not in practice.

Other characters have other plans for perfect lifetimes. Young Peter, once he shakes off the relentless Heather and Rebecca, is fascinated by Sylvie (Carlie Westerman), a 10-year-old neighbor who does comparison shopping to get the best price on kitchen appliances. Peter catches her ironing some towels. They are going straight into her hope chest, she explains. She is preparing her own dowry. Her future husband, when she grows up and finds him, had better be ready to be good and married.

There is also an art curator (Tracy Wright) who has a strange way of evaluating art, as if she's afraid it may violate rules she's afraid she doesn't know. She has a sexual hunger that proves particularly hard to deal with. She is, however, able to project her longings into the uncomprehending world; the strategy she uses, and the result it brings, is a scene of such inevitability and perfection that we laugh at least partly out of admiration.

-Roger Ebert

ON FAITH

ON FAITH
I’ve always believed that faith is an important aspect in a person’s life. I find it suspicious when people are lacking any sort of faith, whether it's faith in God, truth, justice, or the American way. Faith is a common thread that ties humanity together, and it has always been a focal point of our family. Myearliest memories of childhood all involved attending church on Sundays with my family, celebrating all feasts sanctioned by the Catholic church. One of my responsibilities as a kid was reading the bible to my father, it was nightly ritual that reaffirmed my relationship with him. While all the other kids were reading Dr. Seuss, I was reading The Old Testament to my father every night. It continues to be one of the lasting memories I have of my father. When I went to Catholic school, I spent three years as a devoted altar boy. I went to mass every weekday morning for three years to serve as an altar boy at the school. I loved the redundancy and ritualistic efficacy of Catholicism. As a child it provided me with stability, discipline, purpose, and confidence.

Then somewhere along the way, doubt, ignorance, and fear came along, and before you know it, faith slips into the nether regions of your consciousness. During high school and college, I tried to reinvigorate my faith, by learning about various religions, and engaging myself in philosophy and science, but it became far too easy for me to place my faith in complex theories, discourses, philosophies, and ideas that were being introduced to me. And for a while, Descartes, Socrates, Foucault, Marx, Derridas, Habermas, Proust, Nietsche, Aristotle, and Heidegger were my gods, and they were my truth. Philosophy became a lonely faith for me, it was hard to find people that had a good understanding of philosophical thought, so over the years my faith in philosophy has slowly withered (even though I cling to it premise every once in a while). When I was going through dark times, I found solace in philosophy instead of the bible.

Over the past couple of years, I have been keenly aware of my faith. After everything I had studied, read, and experienced, everything all boiled down to God. Even re-reading some of my favorite philosophers, it seems as if all their ideas somehow returned back to God. I had been exploring my faith in various personal manners, it was something that I kept private. I wanted to explore my self and my faith without any external influences. But I am beginning to understand that faith is not a solitary endeavor, it takes a village to nurture that faith within me. After my father died certain things began to change, I became more aware of my soul. I began to ask myself questions, poke at my own beliefs, and I am more willing to go deeper into this rabbit hole, reach deeper within me. I know something is tugging underneath.

So where am I? Beliefs are supposed to be truth. If I believe that God exists, then I can not say that “I don’t think God exists.”. I am finding that it is not obvious that religion has to be a matter of truth or untruth, and that being religious has nothing to do with assessing what is true and false. I am beginning to separate religion from beliefs. I have to rethink the way I think about religious institutions, and how it fits in my life. Perhaps accepting a religion may be more like enjoying a painting, following a sports team or band. The practices and rituals serving as an emotional or social guideline. When I was in my father’s funeral mass, I wasn’t interested in hearing the truth, I was there to mourn, reflect, and meditate on a departed life. If we were a family of atheist, I don’t think we would’ve been able to properly deal with the emotional and social ramifications of losing a loved one. So when I admit to myself that God exists, it’s not the same way that I say the sun exists, or that this pen exists. It is more like expressing joy, love, or excitement. Because of this, my admission of God’s existence is immune from criticism of whether it is true or false.

But is faith and belief in God enough? How does the religious institution fit into my life? One of the biggest misconceptions I’ve had about religion (specifically Christianity), is that they all believe the same principles, rituals, and practices, the same way that Catholicism is standardized throughout the world. You can go to a catholic church in Manila, Rome, Mexico City, or Stuttgart, and even if you don’t know the language you would still be familiar with the rituals and teachings of the mass. Christianity has multiple sects and subgroups, all belonging to one giant umbrella of Christiandom. I need to find that niche, that community where I can practice and nurture my faith, and let it thrive. It's an exciting time in my life, and I am looking forward to exploring this aspect of my life.

FLASHBACK FROM THE PHILIPPINES

FLASHBACK FROM THE PHILIPPINES