Wow, so much time, so little done. That’s all I’m going to say about that! What can I say? I mean, I started writing this big ol’ ball o’ nothin’ way back in 2001. Back then, only weirdos were blogin’ and back then it was “E/N” (Everything/Nothing). Perhaps in such a small circle, that’s how ‘we’ knew it. Since then, though, I’ve grown up and personal responsibility and laziness has been allowed to take over. I’m aware of it, and powerless. (cop out)

Well, I’m pretty damn sure we are going to hell. Okay, not exactly as the remaining few readers of this site know that I don’t exactly think of hell as a real place, to say the least. There is a lot coming our way and it isn’t too far out.  Water, global warming (and this term is really becoming a bad word due to the incorrigible fight from the financed right), the financial crisis on scaffolding, the general and growing state of ignorance of the populous, the systemic ascension of fiscal priorities over personnel, etc. It is hard to summarize everything that is wrong right now but it is largely due to the system existing unchecked for too long. Worse yet, a lot of the oversight has been maimed back in the Bush years (God help us)(if I may oversimplify) of massive deregulation.  The worst part is that the populous that should ultimately be up in arms and quite seriously be baring arms is naive to the problem.  Life is tough and the understanding of the situation largely comes from the mass media. It is all too commercial and we don’t have the time to sidestep the bullshit on the tube to find out what is really going on. To me it was obvious. This was going to happen. The general populous is quite average. We didn’t get here because our society is more intelligent than the last. We got here because our intelligent citizens are more intelligent than their predecessors and we “stand on the shoulders of those before us” (if I can paraphrase).  If you start jerking around the masses by controlling the information they receive, you own the country. I’m obliged to say that there is more to it than that but for the sake of time…

It is sad because the country was founded by some brilliant, rich, powerful men with a great vision.  I say it that way because their motivations weren’t entirely altruistic as landowning, wealthy, powerful, elite. But what they had was a vision for a nation that could exceed anything before it and preserve the ideal that people are important in such a way that it could endure the inherant pitfalls of powerful men seeking ultimate control of it all.  And this may seem aggressively false to those it insults but, the Republican vision for the direction of the world generally puts financial success above the health and happiness of the populous as a whole.  And this is obviously hypocritical as Republicans are generally the party of “values”.  They are not my values but they are values that they hang onto as if handed down from God and somehow timelessly applied to the evolving present.  The world should be a better place if we all seek to achieve the greatest happiness as a whole rather than preserve a system that allows, and moreover, promotes individual success with no consideration of the larger picture.  I don’t see why we must allow marginalization of a segment of the population while a far smaller segment of the population is allowed to grow egregiously beyond the poorest segment thousands-fold. It is ridiculous how much better our world could be if the extremely rich were to strategically spend a negligible fraction of their wealth.  We all live on the same goddamn planet and the better off we all are, the better off we ALL are. FUCKERS! Goddamn I hate ignorance.

The frustration I feel about how we came to be where we are today is not something I can put into words. The best way for me to describe the situation we are in is that it “is all so tragic”.  We are in a great time of transition and growth and we are squandering our accumulated knowledge and burgeoning technology in favor of profits and an obviously degraded and spiraling future.  The dismal future we face is teabagging us while we painfully rest this night of boisterous partying off with the hope of making it to work the next day by means of a miracle.  It is bullshit! There is no way in hell this is going to turn out like we’d hope.

All I can say is thank the baby Jesus that I am probably the last generation of comfortable excess. The ones that follow will surely have a much more complicated future.  Unfortunately, you know who are the first to go when things go sour: the old and weak.  And when things go sour, I will probably be old and weak.

When you see me begging, indulge my suicide.

Peace. –Mark

Here in California on the November ballot there was Proposition  8. In it was the constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Thus the entire motivation for this amendment was to exclude homosexuals from the legal and emotional ceremony.  I had high hopes that people of California had finally arrived at a reasonalble and mature level. I was wrong.

As it turns out by looking at the LA Times’ nice election app (link) only folks on the coast think homosexuals should be able to get married. The exception to this broad statement is Los Angeles County and south, including Orange County.  I’ve been to Orange County. I can say without any justification that is feels quite conservative down there.  And I have to say out of frustration and a lack of willingness to give any sort of ‘benefit of the doubt’ that conservatives and ignorant people seem to have a lot in common. I have to assume that the large Catholic population (read: Mexican; largely catholic) lead to to LA County’s vote for passage. But the app has a nice filter function and I found most interesting were the filters based on percentage of population with educations.

If you recall my post earlier this summer, I am fiercely heterosexual.  Lord almighty, I love girls.  Dude! I mean, it effing rules my daily behavior. And being atheist (if you haven’t read many of my older posts) implies the general assumption that Biblical ideas have no weight in having been written in an old book followed by maniacs. Yes, anyone who follows the Good Book as fact is manic. In light of that idea, I have no real reason to get married except for the ceremonial aspects. One, I see no other way ATM to prove my selfless loyalty to the woman I (absolutely) love. Two, this is a government  honored contract with different rights and obligations than being single.  In many cases both aspects are related. First, I ask my girlfriend to marry me to prove and show my genuine commitment and affection. Second, it comes with legally binding commitments that enforce such a sacrifice. And it is a sacrifice. I could be having so much more sex. Well, not necessarily more sex but definitely more sexual partners. Trust me, that is what being a man is ENTIRELY about.

So why shouldn’t homosexuals be allowed to participate? In my mind the answer is, “There is no reason whatsoever at all.” But I’m not illogically obliged to moderate my behavior based on dogmatic, biblical beliefs (read: do first and ask for forgiveness later). In my mind I have to think that the 52.4% of Californians (including my home county of Los Angeles) are controlled by their internal fears.  I have to assume that there is a certain percentage of folks that see marriage through their church’s perspective and thus end up in the second percentage of folks that feel the abject emotions of they, themselves being intimate with someone of the same sex and respond strictly, emotionally with rejection. That is, like so many intolerant perspectives, it is based on fear.  Too many people don’t know how to handle rationally the things they feel.

My perspective is that while seeing two guys outwardly displaying intimacy as two heterosexual people  do causes my kneejerk reaction of repulsion, forcing me to look away, I see absolutely zero reason to discriminate what they are allowed to do versus what any other couple is. Thus, there are two parts to this. One, how people feel about the topic. Two, what is right and wrong  in a constitutional and legal sense.

The whole of this thing is in the fact that people are straight or gay because they are biologically built this way (I think it is irrelevant to argue whether or not they ‘chose’ to be gay). Hey, I’m built this way and all I want is vagina and boobies. When I see two dudes kissing or more explicit (the web is a vast and uncensored place if you want it to be) it causes a visceral reaction that I cannot help.  It comes down to the automatic response that most people have which is to put one’s self into the observed position. But because I woudn’t do it (without sufficient amount of alcohol and peculiar circumstances—I’ll be quite honest) does not mean it is wrong.  Where is the tolerance that most red-white-and-blue-bleeding Americans are so readily willing to exalt?   It’s not there because they are phonies. They don’t understand their beliefs. All they understand is groupthink and the things that make them feel as if they are right in the grandest sense. It is the same feeling that feeds any persons’ nationalism.  It is the reinforcement that politicians utilize.  It is that thing that unites us as tribesmen.  And at the same time, it is the thing that no one really second guesses.  Life is much more complex now that we are commuting, working stiffs, totally disconnected with existence.

There is a level of separation now between our own mortality and daily lives. We live in virtual worlds. Religion has traditionally provided the lubrication between the two. Life on the fundamental scale is about growing old while eating and copulating. Everything else is just a matter of getting this on in the most equitable and successful manner. Even then, some of the equity is just a matter of our big brains. Whatever the real case might be, why should those who want to get married to their same-sex lovers be excluded?

If it scares you, then you say, “Hell no. It just ain’t right, pal.”  And to you I say, “Grow up.” This isn’t a matter of how it makes you feel.

If you feel it is an attack on the sanctity of marriage, bringing down the meaning and value of the ceremonial ‘soul’, as it were, of the institution, then you are right. I don’t want to give this to the bigots but if they define marriage as such, then homosexual involvement breaks this. What I disagree with is that this is true and that it even matters. What most people, including the bigots, want is the value of marriage toward their partners. Everyone who gets married wants to say to their other, “I give to you my entire being.  I give to you my legal life and together we shall live life as a team.” Nowhere in this ceremonial agreement is the notion that one partner shall have a penis and the other shall have a vagina. Nowhere in this agreement is the notion that biology dictates the ability and validity of marital sacrifice. And it is sacrifice—if you are a man. As a man, there is more sex to be had. The point is that the exclusion of same-sex marriage is based on the abject emotions felt by the bigot regarding the matter; not the virtue of the act. Moreso to the point, the state is only concerned with taxation and property rights. So from that perspective, what the hell does it matter? I keep reitterating the word “ceremony” to make the point that marriage is mearly a show; a social display for a verbal commitment.

All I have to say is, “Fuck all of you bigots. You don’t give a damn about how homosexuals feel about their girlfriends and boyfriends. You seem to miss the humanity of love in favor of your own conceptions of sexual perversion.” All I have to say to the slight majority and more than half of the voting populous who thought we should change the constitution of California to discriminate against sexual preference is, “FUCK YOU!”

Could you imagine loving someone and wanting to give yourself to them unconditionally but being forbidden because a bunch of assholes look at you as if your feelings and desires aren’t valid? And that is only part of the issue. Like retirement and health insurance, we know the future is unpredictable and inevitable so it must be planned for. Included in marriage are rights to visitation, financial and property assets and denying marriage to same-sex partners/homosexuals (the word “homosexual” seems to have been demonized by this movement) denies them of fundamental rights in the worst of times. But for retarded reasons the majority of assholes in the state of California decided to change the constitution to discriminate against sexual preference because of how they react to it. These are the same people that might answer ‘no’ to the question, “Should the government be allowed to stop a person from protesting against something they feel is wrong?”

All I have to say is, “Fuck you, assholes. Grow up.”

I found Colin Powell’s endorsment of Barack Obama to be well stated and impressive. I also know that my mother is a democrat however voted for the em-effing Bush; something that seems clearly a result of her value of church.  So I sent a link to the endorsment to her and I should have expected her response. Here is a link to the video. Watch it if you have seven minutes and aren’t already totally tired of this election. My mom emailed me a response that got under my skin and pissed me off on several levels. Her response was the following (her bold type included):

Hmm…really? Have you really done the research on Obama? Dig in and really search him out. Check out Fox News. It’s pretty hard to blow off his background, for me anyway. I’m actually pretty surprised at this endorsement as I’m sure many are. And equally surprised that you sent this to me. I really struggle with the church that Obama attended for twenty some years. His pastor really is against whites among other things. You can’t attend someone’s church and just ignore these things. We’ve left a few churches just on the pastor’s preaching and the way he ran his church. It is amazing to me that people are just ignoring that fact. All his connections with Ayers, Farrakhan, Rezko and others. I could go on, but ultimately you will make your decisions. But really, really read. I could have bombarded you with anti-Obama stuff, but you have indicated your stance on certain things. You have a right to your own opinions and choices. I blame myself for some of the way I have influenced your life. I know that McCain is not much of a choice either, but at least he is open with all his records, birth certificate, medical records, etc. You really know most of his background and what he stands for. Which I don’t think Obama has been completely open with all his records. Oh, and check out his wife and what she stands for. Some of the things that Obama wants to do down the road, could affect your paycheck in the wrong way. Ugh, politics!

So at this point I wrote a response and I haven’t sent it back.  I’m not sure it is worth it.  I would however like to at least clear up that I’m not just blindly anti-McCain (thus my support is going to the other guy) and completely unread. On the contrary. I’ve read a lot. Here’s my response:

Wow, I’m really considering my words when I write this.  I’ve grown up believing you were a democrat with a more populist position on what the world should be like. I was dissappointed and quite surprised to hear you voted for Bush. For very similar reasons I see McCain as very obviously the wrong choice for the country; especially for today’s times. To imply I don’t know about Obama and to follow up with Fox News as an informative source is a mistake.  Fox is a very conservative, very biased, and very politically skewed ‘news’ outlet.  They frequently report information that is inaccurate and straight from Republican strategist press releases. That is, the news is often precisely what the political strategist wants the people to hear. Again, don’t take me wrong by writing this stuff. I tend to be a bit blunt when I write. The point is that most of the garbage on the television is meaningless and all too often complete fabrications.  Obama’s connections with Ayers, et al, are irrelevant–especially when you consider the folks surrounding McCain and every other major political figure. Ayers in particular is a complete red herring and another example of the McCain campaign grasping at strings in order to tie even the most distant dirt on tthe other guy. Really read. None of this crap matters when we’re trying to figure out who is going to help this country. Bush was one of the worst presidents for this country and yet the popular media was talking about Swift Boats and Gay Marriage. Clearly these meant nothing for what the president did to the country and world.

Now I’m not saying I like Obama.  In Colin Powell’s words, I agree that we need a transformational figure from a newer generation and Obama is that man. It is an important change in the country’s path into the future.  McCain represents very little of what the world needs; primarily concerning the environment, the great majority of society (that being the working class), and our military position in the world and how we deal with other countries.  It is all the standard Republican modus operandi that places much of the peoples’ well-being and power in the hands of the very rich and powerful with the expectation that they will do what is best all the while speaking to conservative supporters as if they were about family values. It just never works out that way. The rich and powerful got that way because their goals are not in the interest of what is right and best for humanity.  Bush’s presidency was unprecedented for its secrecy, anti-environmental policy, unconstitutional actions, cronyism, and overall incompetence. Sure, McCain “is not George Bush” but he certainly supports the same things that have been sucking this world dry over the last 8 years.  What’s worse is this Palin joker.  I don’t even want to talk about how absurd and completely political that choice was.  No other institution in the world puts such lack of qualifications in charge. The worst part is how everyone swoons for this woman and acts like she cannot be criticized like any male VP is/should. Thankfully, I think the larger part of the journalists out there see how unlikely and irresponsible that pick was–but I’m not watching Fox News.

I could start in on Obama, as well.  He’s not my candidate. What he is, though, is the only choice as an alternative to what I see as entirely the wrong choice. McCain’s no maverick when you look at the big picture. It is all a big advertisement; a way of making his name a brand and separating himself from Bush.  

But I feel like I know where the anti-Obama sentiment comes from.  I don’t understand why there needs to be this misconception that the left is anti-religion. After all, the majority of people believe in God, and that includes people of all political affiliations. I don’t think there is enough emphasis on the philosophical importance of keeping religion out of government.  This country was founded on religious freedom and religious lawmaking has a huge potential and likelihood of violating other peoples’ freedoms and constitutional rights. It is not that government is anti-religion. It is that government needs to be responsible for all of its people. I mean, it is one of the major things that Jesus was fighting for in his time. The church was very powerful and taking money for forgiveness and access to God. But this part of the discussion is not a good argument for what I feel is where most of the religious folks’ base their political decisions. It is fear, ultimately, in a very generic way, and an incomplete picture of why the world is the way it is.

Clearly I have followed this political rabbit too far down the hole.  I have spent a lot of time following this campaign and I was completely angered and upset when Bush took the last two elections. This election is the next one that could let me down or completely defeat any hope of a better direction. Either way, it’s not going to be pretty.

I hope I did not offend.

Mark

It is an eternal question that men don’t really want answered. Why don’t girls know how guys are? Why don’t they understand how sexual we are? There are a couple parts to these questions. Is it that girls don’t know how guys are or that they don’t know to what extent?

The male existence is an endless drive for hip thrusts into…well, anything female, really. Of course, I speak for myself, but I’m pretty damn sure most of this goes for the testosterone pumped among the species.

I still find it quite humorous to imagine even the most asexual among us doing the hip-thrust (a-la Arnold Poindexter) in the presence of any mammary laden human being. I’m reminded of such examples when I’m near the most non-sexual of men; indeed, arguably repulsive, but at least loved by some woman since before his current, deplored condition. This guy…approximately 45 years old, curly hair, balding slightly so that his forehead meets the peak of his cranium, average height, fat, total douchebag to talk to (come on, we all know what kind of people are douche bags), likes to show up wearing a bandana tied over his pathetic hairline…notices the scrumptious piece o’ ass on the telly that I’ve been admiring for the last few minutes and exclaims the baby-boomer equivalent of “dude, holy shitballs, check that out!” On that level every man is united. If I hear a guy—and not even in whatever group I’m standing among—say the calm and yet distinct utterance, “dude…”, all in earshot perk to surveillance mode. We all know that “…dude…” means there is tail among us. It could be as simple as a very quick bump of the head; a half inch nod of approval during eye contact where the eyes jut to the side indicating where to look for some tasty, female, adrenaline spike.

Total strangers, men, walk nearby in the same direction, passed by even the most modestly dressed and completely average of builds, and both turning simultaneously to get a second look at her ass, will regain composure and essentially give the unspoken glance to one another meaning, “…dude, that was hot” as if to extend a fist met by the others fist. Sexuality for all females is the bond between men. It is not sports. Sports is news. Sports is like talking weather to a stranger except it is far less visceral and easy to communicate with words. If men could talk about how they feel sexually about women in casual, ‘I don’t know who you are’, conversation, we would. It is about all we would talk about. Except, it isn’t verbal.

The sex drive is like no other. I don’t think—no, I know I could not—ever put into words the extent that sex drives me. I know it is the same for most men. We are so driven that it is the only end that any means could justify. I mean, it isn’t the “end of all ends” but it is the only one that holds such enormous significance physically and mentally, whether we like it or not, that any man would disobey his strongest principals to hear the siren song. The allure is enough to force a man to assess whether or not he could make any obstacle to the goal disappear. “I love my girlfriend but this is…”. I can’t justify it but it is real. My girlfiend, bless her soul, appears to understand. I’m cursed with blunt and frank honesty. “Listen, I would have you bent over every piece of furniture in this house every day if, one, I didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of you; two, I felt like exercising every time I wanted to get off; and three, what I’m not willing to put out in the open, I didn’t want to fuck a hundred times more girls than just you.” I don’t care how devoted to your girl/wife you are, you want to spread that seed as thin as possible. “You, you, and you. Get your skinny asses over here and suck this cock.” And the end of that extraordinary day you come home and say to yourself, “Please God, don’t ever let me lose the love of my life.” Because, you see, we don’t want to hurt anyone. We, as men, don’t have any choice but to be driven by an insanely persistent and powerful force to have sex with as many women as we can possibly convince, deceive, pay, or force. But few of us actually want to lose the mainstay of our emotional existence. If any of us could have our ideal situation, it would be that we could taste the nectar of any peach, test the tenderness of any melon, smell the scent of any blossomed flower, and enjoy the warm, loving embrace of the woman that we love. It is exactly that, without modification, that any man truly wants. We don’t have a choice in that. Girls are pretty, even the ugly ones.

I would never cheat. It is a matter of principle. I love my girl. She is the best girl I have ever known and I am convinced “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that there is no other girl on the planet for me. No joke. She is THE one. But should I end up on a business trip and a beautiful woman, even quite modestly beautiful, perhaps with a big ol’ ass that ripples with a good smack from the side as I pile-drive behind it, a little flatness to the cleavage indicating how many years gone since the perk has abandoned those boobies, but a cute face and an aggressive posture toward experiencing my masculinity dripping sweat above her, make obvious advances at hooking up with me, I’d really have to consult the devil and the angel about how I should proceed. You see, these things just don’t happen to the willing when the situation actually is appropriate. How often does a man find himself in a situation when a woman wants to scratch the only itch he so, insanely, needs scratched right here and now? A man feels that itch constantly and ever since he began feeling the itch he has come to terms with the fact that relief is not going to come from the plethora of feminine analgesic that surrounds him. Women are not driven like men; probably for the better. There are too many people on this planet to have both parties hell-bent on reproduction—or at least enacting conditions that facilitate it.

What does age have to do with any of this? Honestly, perfection will bring a tear to my eye but a flawed woman will draw the same. How I do love small tits. How that bit of swell on the outside of the thighs sets my loins on fire. How I love it when a woman shows a bit of cleavage or sits across the way in a skirt, legs crossed, smelling like some supernatural flower. Mmm, it is like a freshly lit barbeque on a Saturday evening before you’ve satisfied your hunger. Let me get a taste of that! But it is a different allure than the spring flower with the book bag slung over her shoulder and the ridiculous MTV-inspired worldview. She has breasts at attention, burgeoning into the new frontier of my palms. Soft, tight skin, unaffected by years of vegetating in a cubicle chair to which she is destined. Her naiveté is ripe for my devastatingly, deceptively mature and sophisticated pessimism. She says, “He’s so fresh; so unlike anyone I’ve ever dated; so confident.” Of course, any girl that says that to me is wise ahead of her time since most misinterpret fearless, shameless, showy, ignorance as confidence; none of which is who I am able to be. Nevertheless, whatever this spring chicken is willing to chase down into my manufactured rabbit hole (into Wonderland, of course) is all I’m after. Who foresees long term emotional bonding with a girl that hasn’t had boobs for more than a few years? That’s what young girls do, right? And eventually they turn thirty and suddenly start looking my way. “You’re such a great man” they say as they eyeball the calendar for the point-of-no-return if they ever want kids. Ignore my Sinicism. I found my girl. I just didn’t bang enough individually or at once before I met her. Regardless, I don’t know if I could have ever had enough anyway.

How do women get a voice in such a world? Well, how do I treat women in life? I’m a liberal guy, in case you didn’t figure it out by the rest of the writing on this site. I don’t have any misconceptions about what a woman can and can’t do (or “should and should not do” if you are ign’ant). If my boss’ boss’ boss is female, I’m not surprised in any way. Now if you ask me to judge her character before I meet her, then I have to go with “ballbuster” as my first guess. And this is solely based on the fact that men are naturally the aggressive humans in this world and that competitive women require a disposition beyond that of her horny counterparts if she wants to get ahead. Outside of the executive levels of our corporate world, what about your average woman? How does she exist in a world where, well, men exist? Honestly, I deal with women as if sex had nothing to do with our interaction, all the while sex is pushing violently for me to admire their features sexually. Boobs feed babies but I’ll never be able to take the American sexuality out of mammaries.

How do men deal with women? Purely speculation, of course, but women, one, must not know what is going on in men’s heads (or to what insane extent); two, men are not acting on their impulses as they truly, honestly, intently wish to; and three, men are driven by control, money, competitiveness as a response to their chemical disposition. These conditions all go together, though. A man is driven by his insane desires but overrides them with sympathy, empathy, respect, humility, and competing desires. Most guys have a dual idea of women: the woman he wants to have sex with and the one he is having sex with. For the one he wants, we all want. When she walks past, we men look at each other, bighting knuckles, muttering the words, “…dude, did you see that.” And then there is the girl we are having sex with. We love our girlfriends. We need that unity; the pair bond. We are emotional creatures, after all. And the familiarity with our favorite girl’s vagina means we can treat them differently. We can treat them like the women whose vaginas we cannot ever be familiar with because of it. And really, the only other classification of women is those we don’t want to have sex with. Besides that, all is fair game.

So what about the receptionist? What about the store clerk, the engineer, the paper-pusher, the mother, the neighbor, the audience member, the patron? It is all live and let live. I’m not going to try to have sex with you (which involves a whole lot of money and time if it isn’t your only goal). I’m only going to imagine having sex with you, however detailed or brief that mental picture might be. And if you keep showing me your legs, cleavage, and ass, I’ll keep peeking when I get the chance. But that’s it. I respect your words, ideas, and decisions like any random man: be quite, pay attention, drive faster, and get out of my way. I kid. Really the idea is just that life goes on. We do what we do and all the while I admire the female body in a graphically sexual manner.

I started a new job back in May for some crummy satellite television teleport (No, not Dish Network or DirecTV). Lemme tell ya, the complexity of this facility could do with some good management, in the human resources respect. Turnover rates are high here because they hire newbs, train them by assumed osmosis, and document very little. A typical new hire gets to know the ropes in at least six months, sticks around for another year or two, then jumps ship as soon as the next, certainly higher-paying job comes along. This is reflected in the two guys with seniority having been on for a max of two years. I am interviewing with DirecTV now. Eff this joint! But I don’t really want to wander off on this subject.

Being the ‘new guy’ puts me at the disadvantage for most related matters. Limited crew size forces twelve-hour shifts. With my presence my newfound, ‘job seeking’ friends can take some much needed vacation time. Welcome to the overnight shift.

Ramping up to a start time of 6:30 pm is much easier than the Ante Meridiem counterpart twelve hours prior.

Day one. The sun heads over the neighborhood trees as I wrap up dinner with my lady in the warm air of our backyard dinner ‘retreat.’ It’s Sunday and I’ve been off from work for nearly four days. The drive through downtown is a breeze. Midnight lunchpail in hand, nothing goin’ on tonight. All is well in foreign-TV-land. So I sit. The clock is your enemy. The brevity of this sentence cannot encompass the endurace required for twelve hours at a desk fighting boredom and the irresistable (and funny) force of exhausted head bobbing.  By the a.m. the morning guy comes in to relieve me; the very same guy I relieved at shift start.

Down the stairs, out the doors, Sony Studios’ enormous billboards looming overhead as I glide to the parking lot. The sun is up. My body feels like it is slightly numb–about as sharp as my mind at this point.

It is almost 8:00 am when I roll up to my home. Click the air conditioner on, drape the windows, set the alarm clock to 4:30 pm just in case. Biology will resist you for a number of days before you can fully embrace the zombie lifestyle. I awoke at 1pm, then 2, then 3, and that was about all I could do. Time for dinner. Breakfast?

The sun is out. I leave for work.

Two weeks of this and somewhere a few days in it occurrs to me: “What day is it anyway?”  I haven’t seen the night sky for a week.  I left for work Sunday evening with the sun setting. I came home Monday morning and the sun was up. It was up when I went to sleep. It was up when I woke up. I’ve been eating lunch at 3 am. Work ends the same day as my next shift begins.  What the hell day is it, anyhow?

And before you know it, bed time doesn’t naturally occur until after 8 in the morning. Wednesday is a half-day. Work ends at 1 am. Time to get home, get one of God’s simultaneously good and worst meals: mmm, mmm, Tommy’s chili burger. Crack open the rum, fire up the ol’ TiVo box, and party like it’s zombies’ night out.

Nothing is permanent.

…that this site evolved and synchronized with the changes that have evolved my thoughts. For too long the writing on these pages has slowed and withered like retired grandfather. Old photos hint of a once youthful, energetic, glowing man and a wit that hints at the mind that still thinks it is as young. So much of my mental torment and curiosity went in to the many, many pages that fill this virtual world. And so much of it came in the few years just out of college. Those days have passed and my life has given me new perspectives built on things I’ve learned in writing here and living the default American life.

The world is very quickly and reluctantly changing its perspective. The consequences of our poor planning and willful shortsightedness on top of an appalling lack of responsibility on the part of our governments, financial institutions, and citizens are beginning to set in. The weakest are the first to feel the crunch as they don’t have the slack to withstand the fluctuations. The problems coming are broader than that. Not one person will come out of this unscathed and the most important thing we can do is plan for the difficult road ahead. I feel that even the most well planned is going to see their routines and perspectives altered. Perhaps my pessimism ignores ingenuity and revolutionary policy change, or even subtle changes, that might keep the downward slope from disappearing off the chart. Or perhaps this great frontier potentially before us (figuratively, of course) is indeed as seemingly endless as I perceive; and possibly greater for the things I cannot see. All I know is that I have never seen the powers that be do anything without a corrupting influence skewing the eventual outcome. But there is so much more to say.

The new ExistentialTension.com is coming as a response to the mounting pressure I feel to understand what the future holds and how to deal with it in the present. The site will be a blend of my photography and writing in the hope that I can utilize my two web sites to put something interesting out there. I anticipate a slow start but I hope to be more productive than either site has been for the last few years. The lull in literary productivity around here was in large part due to comfort and that is quickly eroding.

Continue on to the old ExistentialTension.com and keep your eyes pealed for the sequel.

–Mark

—Beginning of email:
Your excerpt (below) from “Living Commercial” caught me~it’s good to see I’m not the only one who feels these things.

“Consumerism is driven by the illusion of happiness in products and lifestyles that are meant to take your money—money that you have traded 8+ hours of your daily life for. Perhaps it is maturing, but as I’ve evolved over the last 5 years from a college student into a working stiff I have lost some of the ambition to dissect, criticize, and discuss the world. I have spent increasing amounts of time working and sorting my finances to the point that free time is happily spent in boredom—but with anxiety. I think to myself that this can’t be right and that I should be more productive, like I should be doing something. So I begin to plan for things that are out of my control. I think that perhaps leisure used to mean something different than it does now. Perhaps people used to know how to spend free time and because their lives weren’t so fast paced as today’s they could deal with time differently. Then again, maybe it is my brain—sometimes it won’t quiet down and that’s why boredom can just as easily lead to anxiety.” …more

but more specifically “…I have lost some of the ambition to dissect, criticize, and discuss the world. I have spent increasing amounts of time working and sorting my finances to the point that free time is happily spent in boredom….” Free time spent in boredom—it’s sad but true. All my old hobbies either bore me, or I no longer have the attention span to partake in them.

Have you ever considered that the problem with the meaning in life is that we spend so much time searching for it, trying to derive it from the events, or even trying to analytically calculate what it must be that we’ve robbed it of its intrinsic worth? I used to fret over how I felt I must live my life–what I wanted it to be, who I wanted to be, and what it all should mean (what I strove for it to mean). And then, for no reason, the worry faded. Actually, the worry of meaning was ousted by financial worries, personal worries. Later, in passing an old professor of mine had said the reason he did what the did was because it was the only thing he felt gave his meager life meaning. That made sense to me. Searching for meaning is so futile because it cannot be found; meaning is “what you make of it”, but more so, you make meaning, so to speak. It’s not that the worries and anxiety aren’t there. It’s that that are irrelevant. We control what is meaningful. Meaning is what we want it to be. So we run around doing things that seem senseless, and we question “why, what’s the pay-off?” and scoff that none of it makes sense. We can’t change those things, so we shouldn’t focus on them. Meaning can’t be found in our 9-5, activity-driven lives, so we shouldn’t question the meaning of that. Meaning is everything else. Meaning is why it’s worth waking up and dealing with all the bullshit. It shouldn’t matter that you cannot pinpoint what you consider meaningful. It should only matter that you obviously find meaning in life somehow or you would’ve quit (suicide) long ago. Meaning is elusive, therefore it drives us crazy because we feel we it has to be unidentified, tangible. People like you and I are so worried about figuring it all out that we overlook the meaning/truth of things. I always felt I had to figure out life and what it’s worth. Life is not a problem, it cannot be solved. Once we accept this we can stop approaching life as a problem we must figure out and just live it.

Those are just my thoughts. I’m tired of the worry and fruitless attempts of solving something I cannot figure out. It comforts me to approach life in the manner described above opposed to my failed attempts of figuring it all out.
—End of email

—My repsonse:
The magician waves his left hand so the audience forgets to notice the right hand. So much of my analytical perspective must have been driven by discomfort. All I could see was a better place. No, it wasn’t a better place; it was an insatiable will at finding a better place. And then without even remarking at the change, like Tuesday into Wednesday, things were different. I see “Existential Tension dot com” and see a book’s worth of writing talking about what IT is all about, and I remark, “Yeah, but who has that kind of time.” But really, I have the time. I’ve always had the time. Most of us do. Really; there is so much time wasted but every single one of us is driven towards leisure and I personally love it more often than the little bug in my brain that says “There is so much more to figure out before your little blob of flesh matters no more.” I fantasize about getting a graduate degree; leaving my career path for another that I would have done correctly if I had two lives. But things are the way they are, and not to say we should go with the rising tide every day, but there is momentum that cannot be ignored. Some things don’t change and I realize that while my ambitions are still there, I am still the same person that likes to take things at my own pace, which includes procrastinating on the jobs I don’t really care for, but also focusing beyond reason on the ones I find particular interest in. No, it is not that I am lazy because I’ll put huge amounts of time and energy into things that capture something I’m interested in. To continue this stream of thought, I have found that I’m abnormally passionate about a lot of things and the larger list is toward the things I dislike. I just see so much more unmet potential in everything that it drives me insane. I blame the mediocrity of society; it’s my go-to cause of all-that-sucks.

Meaning to me these days is almost one of those things I don’t take seriously. I read all that I wrote and my opinions haven’t changed; just my attitude and perspective. It’s like being on a foothill and seeing a great forest below. Then some time later you climb to the peak of a greater mountain and see the same forest. It is the same place you knew but now you see a bit further. I mean, I guess it is like that. What can I say? I’m in a part of my life where my parents are getting older; they have grand-kids by their latest spouse’s kids. I have a career that has taken me a long way in a short period of time. I’m pondering my own fleshy clones and what it might mean to be old and childless. Suddenly meaning is not entirely what it used to be. Well, that’s not entirely true. Meaning several years ago included a path to thinking about my own family, aging, and mortality, except those things weren’t as close as they are today, or will be forever to come until I die a lazy Sunday or a fiery car crash.

I said earlier that I don’t take the idea of “meaning” seriously. Really, I’m analyzing this as I go right now, but to ask myself, “What is it all about?” doesn’t spark some chin-scratching pondering. I take the approach of the old man who seems to have seen it all (as us young whippersnappers might perceive); I give advice. I say,

“You see, life is merely what you are doing at the moment. For a time, you look toward the future because you don’t have a past but know enough to realize the grand scale of things to come and how many infinite paths you have to choose from. Of course! It is extremely overwhelming! Not only that, you are discovering who you really are by struggling with your desires and will for integrity, not to mention independence. But even pointing this out does not solve the pressure you feel in your soul. Only struggling though this period will give you perspective later. It is a rite of passage; no use looking for the easy way out. But then, before you know it, you are actually already out. And as it turns out, life’s meaning leaves the realm of the future ends enters the realm of the near-future, and even some times the present.”

Now I can only speculate on the rest of such an old man’s gospel, but I’d imagine that it would continue…

“And for the wise-before-their-time, those who see the meaning in the present will be happier people. So you live a good portion of your life living for now and the next couple years; vacations, home renovations, braces for the kids, a little cash here and there for retirement, birthday parties, holidays, visiting the folks. But then you get old and life changes again. Now meaning seems to have left you. Meaning passed you up in your mid-life and now you look to share what you’ve learned. You see the end is closer than the beginning and every new day is one more for the books. A lot of things suck; they suck real bad. But a great many more are brilliant. No longer bogged down by the hassle of living for tomorrow, you live for today, and the next day you can see your family.”

So to me, really, right now, I see meaning in the things I like. I don’t mean porn, but I won’t ignore the fact that there is room for understanding even such a contradictory notion of meaning in the visceral pleasures of naked women; perhaps largely a male thing. Let me modify that idea. Meaning is in the things I am passionate about. This way I include passion for the things I like AND dislike. We can’t ignore the passion that ignites a will toward change. This idea seem obvious when we consider the text-book figures of great movements. I have to ask, then, what is the meaning of my life right now.

My gut reaction is, “What do you mean?” I don’t actually see meaning but I know what is meaningful TO my life. I love my girlfriend; I really love her. She’s like no other person I ever thought existed. It is in a way that I can’t quite understand yet. I mean, it feels more mature than anything I’ve ever known but yet foreign, like there is more to learn about her. I’ve been in love but this is different. I can’t place it. But it is this mystery that really fuels the meaning to it. I find so much more importance to the things that bring me joy and I don’t know why. This throws back to what you said below: “we’ve robbed [the meaning of life] of its intrinsic worth” by searching for it. It sounds so very Quantum-Physics; Uncertainty Principle. But really, you have hit it so exactly right in the rest of that paragraph. All the meaning you will ever find in life is worth as much as you allow yourself to live it, without dissecting and quantifying it. And fortunately for us, there is never going to be an answer that such an approach will find. At least that will be true if the pursuit is honest and intelligent. I could easily see the same struggle resulting in a false conclusion, e.g. Christianity. So ultimately, the struggle for solving the unsolvable riddle leads to the solution of understanding how the riddle works, and in the end, the solace of wisdom.

By day I run a lab where we test software we developed making interactive television and video on demand possible. I’m a tech guy with a growing number of years spent around miles of cables and countless hours watching progress bars sweep from empty to full. I’m pushing thirty, drive a nice car, keep to myself, not attracted to crowds, and an overall quiet guy.

Here I am in my polo shirt (black for good measure) and white tennis shoes, toilet paper jammed in my ears, pounding finger tips on the hand rail to the beat of double-kick drums, bouncing head at half speed to some of the most brutal metal to make it onto a larger record label. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to like this music but I love it. Every song is capped with the raised devil-horn-fists and the f-word. I can’t understand a single word. Each song is new to me and I love it.

I have more in common with the fifty-something “hall monitor” keeping folks out of the aisles. He sure as hell doesn’t get this music. What makes me think I do? I still hang onto my high school roots of skateboarding (back when it was not a sport and it meant being more on the outcast side clicks), punk rock, and metal. My pants are still baggy, I have what looks like a staple in my ear, I still go to shows and feel like the old man, my hair is all fucked up, and for some reason like tattooed chicks in spite of the lack of desire to date one with said adornments. Where do I fit in the world? What happens when even my theoretical kids wonder what the hell I’m listening to?

The fact is I like the contrast. I like that I don’t fit molds. I look around me and I see a bunch of degenerates whipping me with their so-metal hair. On one hand it is easy to criticize these guys (and both girls who came to the show) for being dirt bags (my cop-friend says he hasn’t unleashed that one on TEH criminals yet). They are dirt bags. But they aren’t different from the masses of “clean” bags out there. So the other hand is that while they are all flying the bird and enjoying the vulgar, blood and gore lyrics, they too will wear collared shirts, drink beer and wash the cars on the weekends, and bang the wife on an odd Thursday night. Just another death-metal loving cog in the great capitalist wheel.

Just like me.

I might be inclined to argue that these guys have a bit more unity among them than most. When you isolate yourself from society you still need people to call your friends. This might be especially true of those who hide behind their typecast and odd style choices because they are too insecure to deal with the things that hold them back. The exterior is often a comfort zone that simultaneously keeps others away and prevents you from having to feel whatever it is that makes you feel so uncomfortable at the same time keeping you away from the people you deep down want to feel comfortable with. There are many fewer tests to the insecure soul when girls won’t talk to you; at least not the ones you really want to talk to.

I digress. If you want to find the kind of person I speak of, an easy target is this crowd. But in reality, I bet this crowd is about as normal as any other when it comes to people being people.

Somewhere toward the beginning of the night, roughly four shots of rum chased by Vanilla-Cherry-Doctor-Pepper (yeah it already has 32 flavors in it, or whatever, so why not mix two more) I wished I was in the mosh pit instead of the goddamn balcony with a padded seat at the back of my knees. I wanted to smash into a bunch of rowdy metal guys, feeding off the wave of heavy riffs and snarling vocals. I wanted to feel a little pain. That’s when I wondered if music of the Iraq War era is death metal. Viet Nam had rock. The people united and were heard. Lord knows if it did anything but create a decade to remember. If we are the new generation; the ones with the energy to spend being angry at the way things are and mobilizing to change it; the ones with voices and time to shout with them, then we are not going to be heard. Politics doesn’t work that way any more and they aren’t listening to anybody that greets their favorite band with, “Fuck you!” as the band greets likewise. Commercialization has killed the common voice. It just isn’t effective. Commercialization has co-opted every morsel of heart-felt pleas and natural movements of dissent. We get confused when a corporate tag line doesn’t show up at the end.

I don’t have a lot of hope for the future. Not while Bushy is up there shitting all over the place. Not while people in this country still think he was the best candidate. Not while the gay marriage phobia can mobilize voters. Not while we don’t vomit at the state of consumption in this country and the world. Not while evolution has phased out the thinking mind. I don’t have a lot of hope for the future. We need a social revolution; a complete upheaval of current mindsets on what’s important to society, the planet, and family. I just don’t know how this can happen. The seeds look like they’re dead.

Whatever happened to anti-trust laws? Somewhere back in the Reagan years they must have lost their populous appeal in favor of mutually, monetarily inspired legislation and blind eyes. Merger after merger we are left with no monopolies but a half-dozen or so companies ruling their respective money trees. There are seven or so giant media corporations controlling every medium. The president of Time-Warner remarked that media companies are more powerful than the government. And who’s out there protecting society’s interests while in record numbers we don’t vote?

Things have changed and I haven’t put my finger on the reasons. Everything seems to be based on a system of specializations. One company builds one piece of hardware, another builds a different piece, then a third borrows the developed pieces and assembles them in a separate package as a new product. Another company develops the marketing. Finally, another company does the distribution. The consumer on the other end looks up at the big blue and yellow logos above as they are greeted by part-time, teenaged sales ‘associates’ armed with highlighters and a podium to find a dwindling selection of competing devices. The idea here is that all the R & D is done by someone else and they sell to companies needing that part of their puzzle. Laptop manufactures numbering in the handful (vague, I know) all sell mass produced systems that get rebranded by Dell and Sony, and others, with only a few actually manufacturing their own systems. There will be one or two companies that build, say, little, electric motors and all the companies that build DVD or CD drives get the motors from them. LCD screens for televisions and laptops come from a few companies like Samsung and Sharp; my Dell is using a Samsung LCD under that ubiquitous, silver badge. Lot’s of technology is this way. Pick up one of the latest Sony DVD burners and you will actually have bought a Lite-on. I picked up a cheapo DVD player a few years ago by GE, which actually turned out to be the guts from a cheapo Apex. Hell, about a decade ago Mitsubishi made the 3000GT which was also the car Dodge used underneath to build the Stealth; likewise the Eclipse was what Eagle used for the Talon.

This all seems so natural, though. “Why reinvent the wheel?” The concern is that with a lack of choices something else is lost. Competing technologies, advances, prices, integration with other components, etc. No company really wants to compete with anyone but themselves. As the competition levels to nothing we see a commonality among the choices and suddenly we realize that each choice is an illusion. Pick at random and the variation is negligible.

What happens when the interests of the people are not motivation for business decisions? Did you notice the mediocrity in entertainment? Did you notice how hard you had to work to find something fresh? Radio, TV, cinema, main stream entertainment have fallen victim to a sort of corporate socialism. The touting of capitalism is just a song for the layman. Maximize profitability. Minimize expense. The formula works; use it until it doesn’t and/or it makes more sense to adopt the newest formula.

On weekends I can hear cars driving beneath my third-story apartment and I noticed that I’d hear the same song every ten to fifteen minutes. It was driving me mad because I’m very sensitive to the fact that everything sucks (my girlfriend must be tired of listening to me bitch). And then I realized after catching a clip of some Shakira video that it wasn’t the same song but the same beat in every song! Lord knows that radio stations only have a dozen songs to rotate through every few hours or so, but why does the consumer not get as nauseous as I do? The very fact that it is all the same clearly points to the rather disturbing notion that the cross-section being marketed to actually LOVES it! Ughh! The Grudge part TWO?!

Let me return to my question: What happens when the interests of the people are not motivation for business decisions? People play a pivotal role in the big economic scheme—obviously. But shouldn’t they really have a voice? Shouldn’t it be clear that their decisions are guided by their own free will and selection among choices? It is not, though. Businesses know what works best, or is working best, and that is what is pushed. They study and understand the forces at a very technical and academic level. They have terminology, forefathers, equations, and gigantic data collection agencies like ChoicePoint. I’m not saying that we should have variation for the sake of being able to choose from crap and premium products. I’m saying we need choice for the sake of choice.

In all this I’m not actually concerned so much with choice of products. This has to do with power, control, and wealth. The lack of choice comes from those who have the market cornered. Money flows from many to few and the few are getting fewer. It’s a scary fact that democracy is failing in this way. Central to this democratic society is information and communication; something that is in the hands of very few corporations. They slant everything and censor the really important debate about who controls what we see, hear, and read. Local news is one thing; they are small time and tabloid. But then there are stations like CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, et al that spend a lot of time on today’s big story. There are no intelligent and in-depth discussions about the political and philosophical relevance of the various events and legal decisions. Everything is simple, sensational, and hyped. Everything is watered down and easy to swallow in short chunks. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the discussion? Where’re the new ideas and the willingness to talk about things that sponsors might not like? Where’s the public outlet? Where has democracy gone?

I think it ended up in the mob’s waving flag. It ended up in our SUV gas tanks. It ended up in News Corp’s bank accounts. It ended up in the ghettos, skid row, and the massive, sprawling, cookie-cutter houses. Democracy fizzled away into the smoke being blown up ye ol’ asses! Democracy is like a lot of peoples’ Christianity: we like to talk about it and act like we are a part of it. We have forgotten what all this stuff is about. We don’t really see the connection between the words and reality any more.

All this is about us! The government, economy, media, utilities, infrastructure—all of it—is for you and me, and the connection with the rest of the world. But we say things like, “I love this country and freedom. I love the democracy that we live in” and fail to elect men with integrity and strength. We talk about how things are and ignore that they are not true. We complain about the same things and miss the things that matter at the core. The center of this is community and intelligent discussion and dissemination of information. It’s just not there and no one is willing to challenge the way things are. We need a revolution on a massive scale. We need a new awareness; a common theme and complaint that rings true to even the common man. A realization that people other than college students can share with the Big Red divide that fills the center of the electoral map. It isn’t that far out of an idea. We all pretty much agree on a lot of it if put the question to us.

(Inspiration for parts of this from “Rich Media, Poor Democracy”. Go read it!)