What a Freakin Pantywaste

"From the minute you wake up in the morning, you are being swayed by market forces."

I remember this quote from a movie (a movie that cost $3.74 to rent, plus $.17 tax which means you get $.99 change that you have to turn around and spend cuz you don't want change). Always comes back to me for some reason.

I get up and go to get an oil change. Just an oil change. I walk into the waiting room (Buy a $.50 soda, not because I'm thirsty but because of my trained caffeine addiction) and a guy next to me tells me how he watched 20-20 the night before. Their expose was on Jiffy Lube. Every guy that walks in with a car, the salesmen try and get him to spend $50. No way he was going to, he said.

The mechanic comes in and tells him he needs a new filter. He says no way. Suddenly, a minute later, he stands up and follows the mechanic out.

"Maybe I do need that new filter," he said laughing over his shoulder.

When I leave: $56.99 (the oil change was $32).

I go to Wall-Mart to get pictures processed. I don't NEED anything else (Hell, I don't need the photos reproduced). I leave buying a DVD because it was only $5.50. I also get gum cuz hey I need it.

I go to Giant and get flowers. I choose the $7.99 bouquet because they look slightly more fresh and full than the $3.99 bouquet. The cashier would want my address and phone number on the $3.99 bouquet so the company can issue me a "Big Savings" card and track my buying habits so they can SAVE ME MONEY.

I get in my car and listen to the slick perfect processed music that 250 million other people listen to. I worry that I didn't get enough fixed on my car. I shove $2 into a donation box for alcoholic teens who need Jesus and I go home.

We live in an unbelievably complicated society where everything is weighed and monitored in terms of value. But then again, it's unbelievably simple. Everything is weighed and monitored in terms of value. It's all reduced to dollars and cents.

Why do I feel like just screaming?

Having to Take A Stand

Issues are shaping up for this next presidential election and politicians are posturing. Who will defend what? How will they defend it?

I want to write about a couple things that will help me decide who I will vote for, perhaps more than anything else. These issues go to the heart of who we are as a people and what America will be for my life. It is my responsibility as an American to be involved or I am simply allowing those who do care shape my future.

The issue that I find to be the most important in the upcoming elections is allowing homosexual people to use the word "marriage" to codify their unions. I don't know if I am going to be able to articulate my thoughts as well as I would like, but I warn you now that this blog will not be short, so if you want to skip it and wait for a more succinct installment on another subject, you should stop now.

Marriage is between man and woman. Families are created when a man and a woman come together and pledge to dedicate their lives to each other and to the children they will create together. Societies form when families come together and live according to standards and traditions that everyone agrees upon. Societies cannot survive without this foundation. Hundreds of millions of years of natural selection (if you believe in this type of thing) and thousands of years of human society testify to these very simple facts.

Homosexual unions destroy the very fabric of our society. They attempt to change what everything else is built upon. Whatever comes from it simply cannot be expected to hold together. Strong families are needed now in our society more than ever before, and this attacks the very thing we are most lacking.

This becomes especially true when one looks at the truth about the homosexual community. The VAST majority of homosexuals are not monogamous, even within a "life union." Most have more than an HUNDRED partners a year and those that are in unions are still shown to be less than faithful, far moreso than the vast majority of heterosexual couples. This has been proven by study after study. If you talk to homosexuals, they will tell you the same thing. The idea of a single monogamous relationship is completely foreign to their culture.

And a single monogamous relationship is exactly what is needed for society. Some have argued that we need the "diversity" that homosexual behavior brings to our society and that we need to be "tolerant" of others people's views. They compare the struggle for "equality" of homosexuals to that of the civil rights movement of the sixties for underprivileged minorities. None of these arguments hold up upon closer scrutiny.

Diversity in a community is a wonderful thing. There is a tremendous level of diversity in this world and I think America would do well to continue to take what it finds to be the best of all cultures around the world and incorporate it into her own. This very process is what makes America the greatest country in the world. But that doesn't include indiscriminately accepting the worst of other cultures as well. It would be like sitting down at a table covered with succulent meats, lush fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as delicately and carefully prepared dishes from all over the world. Then you are presented with a plate covered with rotten beef covered in worms with putrid cabbage and molding pastas and you are told that with everything else, you must eat this plate as well in order to be appreciate "diversity." Suddenly the idea of accepting anything and everything doesn't make as much sense.

The same goes for tolerance. Tolerating other ideas and ways of thinking is very important in order to learn and grow. But tolerance also involves being able to then make decisions once you are presented with different ideas and then choose. It involves acknowledging rights and wrongs and being willing to examine one's own views but not throw them out with each new idea presented. Society must NOT be tolerant of some types of behavior. We must not tolerate drunks behind the wheel of a car. We must not tolerate people injecting themselves with certain types of drugs or people having sex with as many people as they want when they have communicable diseases. Society puts limits on tolerance out of self-preservation. We simply cannot tolerate everything. A completely open and tolerant culture is one that is on the road to social suicide.

Finally, the argument that the struggle for "equality" by homosexuals before the law being analogous to the civil rights movement is simply absurd. First of all, people who are homosexual in nature ARE equal before the law. There is nothing that separates them from everyone else. There is nothing legally discriminatory about the laws the way they are now. What homosexuals are seeking is to be considered FAVORED in the eyes of the law by seeking to change the nature of marriage so that they can receive the same benefits as married couples. They are seeking to change the very basis upon which society exists. They want the benefits of the privilege (marriage is a privilege NOT a right) without adhering to the boundaries of the institution.

As for its comparison to racism, racism is irrational. Hating a person for the color of their skin is hating a person for what they were born with, not for their actions. Opposition to homosexuality is not opposition to biology, it is opposition to a trend in society that attacks the very roots of who were are as a people. In a racist society, a person of another colored skin could never do anything to achieve equal status. People who have homosexual tendancies, however, have a very real and active choice in how they are treated and ultimately define how people treat them based on their actions.

Allowing homosexuals to sanction their unholy unions and call them "marriage" leads towards the dissolution of marriage in any definable form. If homosexuals are allowed to be married, what stops people from practicing polygamy? What stops men marrying animals, from people marrying their next of kin? Since the definition is tampered with, you can change it to fit anything you want.

What concerns me even more than the idea of condoning homosexual unions is allowing them to raise children in their homes. More than anything, I think this is the greatest evil. Children need a stable home with a mother and a father that were born with the respective plumbing. Children need role models who are both masculine and feminine and exemplify what those things mean. Children need a father who is male, a mother who is female. They need both parents who love them and are faithful to each other. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE. Any tampering with this formula is doing evil against the child and should only be resorted to under the greatest of duress, not out of personal decision. That is how nature works, how society has always properly worked, and if you'll allow me to use a religious reference (God forbid we should in a nation of the 1st Amendment) it is how God has always wanted us to be.

After all that has been written here, I want to say that I am not proporting violence against homosexuals. I don't believe in legislation against sodomy or persecution of adults who choose to practice it. I DO believe that as a society we should discouarage it through the media, education and cultural groups just as we discouarge other types of socially destructive behavior like alcoholism and drug use. But I don't think we should drive them out. And I don't believe we should order our police into anyone's bedroom as long as consenting adults are the only ones in that room .

My conclusion is that homosexuality is wrong but should be tolerated among consenting adults. Changing the laws to allow homosexuals favored status comparable to married couples before the law is wrong and should not be tolerated. People practicing homosexuality should niether be allowed to call their unions "marriage" nor should they be allowed to adopt children. I am taking a stand here and believe these things with all my heart. I say these things with love towards everyone and hate towards no one. Our society must stand upon some principle or it will fall without a foundation. And whoever among our society's leaders are willing to take a stand with me, it is they who I will follow.

It's Like Drinking Warm Flat Soda

Upon first glance, you can't always tell. But at second glance, red flags start going up and you're wondering why it's just sitting out opened on the table out of the can and in a non-descript light green plastic cup.

On first contact, however, it becomes completely obvious. You know there could have been something super-delicious there, but not in its present state. The last thing you want is to swallow even a little bit, and yet you can't just spit it out. So it just sits in your mouth for a second while you debate between two equally-unnappetizing ends to the situation.

As you walk away, you ask yourself, "How do you inject the desperately needed fizz? How do you change the temperature to make it cool and yummy?"

Usually, you can't, and you just have to move on be more careful the next time.

A Weekend in Charleston

Didn't know the South had such a jewel in its crown.

Charleston was beautiful. Green, warm, full of good people. Southern Hospitality at its best.

The hotel was at a great price, the company was fantastic, the Tenacious D was played loud and so was the Outkast. A little Drive-by Truckers also played to sooth the southern soul. From the handspring contests in the rooms (caught forever on tape for posterity) to the gentle strolls down King Street to the rapid running from one awning to the next while the rain poured down, almost every waking minute was interesting if not just plain fun.

Fort Sumter reminded us all that we have this nation at a price. Market street reminded us that a good meal also has a price, but that price can usually be paid with a credit card. And the Edmundston-Alston house reminded us that some views of the sea (noticeably the second floor drawing room view) cannot be bought at any price.

I hope to go back some day. I hope to enjoy the clean sea air, the wonderful hospitality and the easy-going lifestyle. What we saw was of course just the tourist veneer, but for the weekend that's all I wanted. I've lived in foreign parts and dipped deep into their reservoirs of life, culture, problems and pain. Perhaps it will one day be my honor to do the same in Charleston. But for now, I will remember it for the fair few days I spent there and look back upon it with great fondness.

Sounds Better in the Song

When I saw her standing there
With her bright eyes and shining hair
She was looking back at me

Some are meant to sing
Some are meant to talk
And some aren't meant to say a thing

But when she opened up her mouth
And that sweet voice came out
I lost track of my own name

Now she's found herself and I lost mine
And I'm just another guy who can't give her anything

----- The Drive-By Truckers

Wolvey on the Way to Work This Morning

"We don't live our lives any more. So we have radio and television put people in "reality situations" so we can listen and see them because we can't do it ourselves. We're marketing reality."

Exerpts from a Letter I Recently Wrote to A Dear Friend

My first thought is, I don’t think there is anything wrong with being 25 and single. I happen to like it. I have dated extensively, had many different relationships, and had plenty of opportunities to get married (one I very clearly just turned down, in fact). I have so far chosen not to get married, and I am happy with my decision. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being either a guy or a girl at my age and not being married. 25, 26 , 27 , 28 , 29, even 30. Still very young, still very everything.

But I do see you and I living in a society that puts marriage as paramount over everything else. This kind of pressure drives a lot of people into marriage perhaps before they may be ready (see the high divorce rates among LDS young married couples to get my point). This pressure also gives a serious guilt complex to those people who want to wait a while. I don’t think I’ve developed that complex thank goodness, but I have had to endure all manner of wankers telling me that getting married should be the number one item on my list of priorities for the last three years. If I were a woman, it would have been for the last 7 years. What that can do is make most people who CAN get married by my age get married, unless they are like me who just ignore the crap we’re fed.

What this culture also creates is a long line of young women who are my age, feeling guilty because they aren’t married, lonely because hey, they’re in their mid-20’s and single, and yet completely either unwilling or unable to develop relationships that move them towards a firm commitment. Like I said in my email, I see a lot who haven’t developed the one-on-one relationships with members of the opposite sex that prepare them for married life (the reasons I think for this we can discuss later). They think that it’s all just going to happen without their direct participation. They look with jealousy and anger on those young women who seem to be able to attract guys (i.e. the ones willing to put out the vibe and go to the gym and wear the make-up and be interested in some guy things) while being unwilling to put in the effort to do the things that make those girls attractive.

Now there are a lot of idiot guys out there of all ages who are doing the same thing: they are living their lives in a completely self-centered fashion and are frustrated as hell that for some reason a relationship just doesn’t fall into their laps. They don’t go to the gym, they don’t put the effort into trying to appeal to the opposite sex, and they think that it will all just happen for them. Strangely enough, sometimes it does and it more likely will for them than it will for women (life isn’t fair, that’s all I can say).

There are also a lot of wonderful young women of all ages (and I would put you as one of them) who are doing what they can to stay attractive and learning to deal with the opposite sex and seeking a relationship in the right ways. They are willing to ignore the crap about having to be married right off the mission or right out of high school and are willing to find themselves a bit before committing to a long-term relationship.

However, I think these women are fewer and further between than you currently believe. I think you are also in for an interesting journey... if you think you can make it to my age as a young woman in the LDS culture and not feel like you are a failure for not having a husband and 2.5 kids. Like I said in my email, it’s the nature of the Mormon beast.

On top of all this, we live in an American/Western society obsessed with sex, rotted by selfishness, confused about gender roles and screaming at women to be everything and nothing at the same time. My heart honestly goes out to men but especially women who are trying to balance who they want to be according to what the world and their ambitions drive them to be, and who the Church has taught them will bring them the most happiness. In the end, we all have a million voices telling us to be a million different things, and it’s up to each and every one of us individually to make sense of it all if we’re going to find any real lasting happiness.

"I want you to do it like you did it when you thought no one was watching."
-- Isabelle in "The Dreamers"

Paris Seems Like a Dream, Part II (See December Archives for Part I)

I've been back for five months. So much of my life has changed since I sat on the steps of L'Opera at Place de La Bastille and watched the unending cars circle the great monument. I am no longer who I was, tho perhaps I will be again. American University contacted me yesterday. Their packet informed me that I was accepted into their law program. That's two schools now I can choose from. What will happen in the next couple months is anyone's guess. My future is broadening even as it closes in around me.

I have a wonderful life now, as I did then, but life is different and I feel the waters of time pouring over my memory and fading some things, crystalizing others. Will I keep the precious memories of an unforgettable season of my life? Or will time cruelly steal them away?

I awoke usually early afternoon at La Res, my apartment in Paris. Any earlier and I wouldn't get 8-10 hours of sleep. I would stumble down the hallway, my flip-flop covered feet making deep smacking echoes, and climb into a shower. Afterwards, I would make my way downstairs and snag some fruit out of the kitchen and maybe cook some breakfast (eggs, lardons--a type of bacon, and sliced tomatoes). Gez would sometimes be there ("Oh, love! You look tired, would you like a cup of tea?), sometimes Pim (the tallest Dutchman I ever met) or Mike (a.k.a. Fugger), the skinniest Quebecois I ever met.

I would make my way out into the common room (the hideous flowery wallpaper and Christmas lights made it all the more homey) and find a spot between Big Texas John and Little John, who would undoubtedly be watching one of the dozens of videos left at La Res by previous tenants. Favorites were "Trainspotting" and the incorrigeable "Eddie Izzard." I sat down, munching slowly on my scrambled eggs or cutting chunks of baguette out to spread some camembert on. The cigarette smoke would be heavy in the room and the sun would be pouring in through the greenhouse-like glass behind the television. Later in the summer, the heat would become unbearable, but now it was just right.

After the second or third film, someone (Raquel from Costa Rica or Kristin from Oklahoma or maybe Yvonne, the South Korean from Holland) would come in and announce an event going on that night (Fete de la Musique for example, or some Exposition-Exhibition, a trip to a museum or just a picnic with friends) and people would begin to mobilize. Within a couple hours, the girls would be all done up, brilliant in their night skirts and make-up. The guys, well the guys did what they could.

First, however, was a trip to the "Ed," the local grocery store. After picking up more baguettes, different odds of food and some with uncountable bottles of beer, wine and hard liquor, we would come back to the Res. We were well-stocked for the next day which many would spend gently overcoming the impending hangovers. Tonight, however, I wasn't going with everyone. Tonight was my night with Our Lady of Paris.

For the last couple hours, I had been playing saxophone in my apartment, serenading the neighbors and the couples down in the courtyard. Now, feeling sufficiently warmed up, I say goodbye to the growing group of people getting ready for their night on the town (promising them I would certainly go next time) and hop on the train and head down town.

At Place St. Michel, I get off the train and make my way up the undeground steps. I immerge next to the river and walk a few hundred yards under a brilliant sun that has almost made its way to the horizon. A million people swirl around me, talking, walking passing by on bicycles and mopeds, dodging cars or sitting at cafes and staring. I love the latter the very most. They are my kind of people. I pass the small St. Michel park on the other side of the road and see couples sunbathing on the grass in dying sunlight. Tourists fill their water bottles in a little fountain while little kids kick up dust eddies in the rocky path.

I climb down another set of steps and make my way on to the stoney quais across from Notre Dame. An hundred yards more and her flank fills my whole view, even as she sits majestically up and across the river. Les Pretres et Les Religieux chime the bells and the air is filled with music. I set my saxophone case down and prepare to make my own.

As the bells die away, I pull out my saxophone and start to play. Couples pass, young and old. Arabs, Berbers, Brits, Americans. Another busker, a Romanian playing a baghpipe, comes up to me and wants to play together. He jumps up and down with his music, a jester from a forgotten age. I play with him, weaving melodies and harmonies into his. He stops from time to time and smiles, his eyes closing and the countless creases on his dark face expressing joy and serenity. We play songs we both know and create new ones as people stop and listen. We both forget everything but the music as the sounds pour out of our instruments and into each other, casting spells in the most magical place in the world.

As night closes in on us both, I thank him for a wonderful evening and close up my case. The night becomes refreshingly cool and I walk my way back to the train station. I make my way back to La Res and join those who chose not to go out for the night. Out in the courtyard between the two halves of La Res and behind a large steel door, a dozen people are playing cards, listening to music and talking. I place my sax upstairs and come back down.

The night is just beginning...

My Life on the WB

Janet Jackson's left breast dropped out on national television at SuperBowl halftime.

CBS's CSI shows ruptured human brain matter as a matter of course.

Three out of every four jokes on any given sitcom have to do with sex.

My life doesn't resemble MTV's "Real World" in the slightest.

Does that mean I'm not living in the real world?

The time for outrage, I think, is over. The time for action was yesterday. I read about countries in the Middle East and hear their cries that we are a decadent morally corrupt society and I can't argue with them. We are.

Rich white Americans pay rich black Americans to sing about how hard life is in the ghetto for poor black Americans and how banging your bitch and wearing the bling bling is all that matters. Meanwhile, those same rich white Americans like to watch TV shows where other rich white Americans stumble through their supposed problems of who they are going to sleep with this weekend, ravaging one social situation after another, leaving nothing but lies deceit and trashed morals in their wake.

Am I any better? Do I not read about hot white chics in the news and listen as we fawn on the bling bling? OK, so my addiction is Law and Order over One-Tree Hill, but is there any difference? I hope there is. Are we all just being played by market forces? Are we not the batteries of the Matrix, except we don't even need to be plugged in because we plug ourselves in? If the Matrix really did exist, how many of us would disconnect?

Escapism is great. Fantasy is great. Reading books and watching movies that take you away from reality for a little while is not a bad thing. It gives us a chance to come back to reality from a new perspective, often refreshed from the experience. But when we start thinking we can treat other people like we would the whores on Grand Theft Auto and think that the only good female is a tall-thin sexually promiscuous female (but available only to me), then we have a problem. If we think all our problems should be solved in 22 minutes plus commercials, if we spend more time looking at a tube than at our families, if violence is the first solution to all problems, if being shocked is entertainment... Then we are one fucked up generation. I'm not talking about the next generation. I'm not talking about our younger brothers or sisters. I'm talking about us.

There's too much to say on this subject for me to get into to it all here. More later.