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Roberto the [Mildly Annoying But Not So] Terrible
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[Mar. 15th, 2008|12:14 am] |
I'm sort of working on an entry at the moment, but in case I get tired by the time I finish it and just end up scrapping it... I'd like to take this time to show my fondness for a great, great program called DarkRoom for Windows, which is basically a text editing dealie that fills up your screen with a dark background, no menus, and text with a soothing color, all of which is customizable. My description sucks, but I assure you it's a great program. It's also an offshoot of a Mac program called WriteRoom, so if you're a Mac whore, then there you go.
The DarkRoom website is here. WriteRoom can be found here. |
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[Mar. 3rd, 2008|12:37 am] |
1985 may arguably go down in history as the greatest year for professional football in the greater Los Angeles area. That year, the Rams and Raiders captured their respective divisions, led by future hall of fame running backs Eric Dickerson and Marcus Allen, respectively. Though neither team went as far as the Super Bowl -- the Raiders were upset in the divisional round by the eventual conference champion Patriots, while the Rams could not muster a single point against the legendary 1985 Bears team that ended up winning everything -- they both captured the hearts and imaginations* of a city that was teeming with succesful sports franchises.
And they were also responsible for two of the gayest music videos I've ever seen.
* Considering that they were both gone within ten years, I can't really verify that any imaginations or hearts were actually captured. |
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| Maybe you care, maybe you don't. |
[Feb. 23rd, 2008|12:53 am] |
I tend to make mistakes sometimes when it comes to my bedtime routine. I'll either be way into whatever I'm playing on my DS, or watching a music video on YouTube over 9000 times, or drinking hot chocolate, or a combination of all those things and much more. So here I am, on El Jay, writing a post about what I've been up to.
In short: not much. My life has taken a few upswings, although none with any long-term implications. I participated in a random drinking night with people I'd never met, I did my taxes long before anyone thought about making them, I rediscovered the greatness of Inside The NBA at the same time my on-again-off-again basketball love became relevant for the right reasons, and I remembered what an annoying group of people the human race still is. But really, most of my days go about the same way that they've gone for the last one billion days, which in my case is going somewhere, coming back home, maybe rubbing one out before retiring for the night, lather, rinse, repeat. Laaaaame.
The best news I can deliver in regards to my life right now is that I'm close to having a respectable amount of money saved up for the car I so desperately need at this point. I really can't stress what a nightmare the bus is, considering that I have to kill myself every day in order to make sure I get to the stop on time, and God forbid I'm thirty seconds late, or else I really fuck myself over and end up being late to work by an entire half hour. I realize there's a gas crisis, but spending extra money seems like a noteworthy sacrifice, compared to the time I end up losing because of a wheelchair being hauled into the bus, or because I forgot to lock a door at work, or something equally as petty. Oh, and not to mention the unbelievably shady people who I have to sit next to or across. No thank you.
I've given up on journalism and professional writing. Seriously. I decided that being any sort of professional writer or journalist means comprising your natural creativity to please a collective of business-minded individuals who could care less about profundity or cultural significance -- it's always about selling newspapers or selling books or selling whatever. I don't want to spend my life being a slave to a system that rewards people for reasons other than their God-given talent. I'd rather just do something more noble for a living (my dream job: overnight technical support for an ISP) and write in my spare time as a hobby, and not have to worry about not eating for the rest of my life because some media suit doesn't consider my talent profitable. I don't want that kind of grief.
On that note, I'm taking another break from education, because I have way too many issues at the moment to keep me from properly concentrating on school. I realize that's been my life's story for the last ten years, but I feel as though I've become more accepting of the reality, whereas before I would just mentally pretend as though I was capable of overcoming it. I really feel as though I need to establish an acceptable life for myself before I can consider myself mentally prepared enough for any kind of schooling. A car to commute to classes can't hurt, either.
That's all I have to say. Boy, I wish I didn't suck. |
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[Feb. 6th, 2008|08:21 pm] |
Hahahahahahah.
Oh, wow.
This story makes me wish I could go back to my senior year of high school, fabricate some documents, and hire someone to play a recruitment officer, so I can convince everyone that I got accepted into some random pseudo-Ivy, and then soak in the praise from friends and family... and when they found out, I would have a fully developed excuse to never have to look any of my high-school classmates in the face ever again. |
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| Choo Choo Choose Me |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|09:56 pm] |
I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'll ever make friends, or marry, or have children at any point before I die.
Meeting people is seriously one of those things that I'm absolutely terrible at, to the point that it seems more impossible than simply difficult. Whenever I discuss my woes about socializing with others, I'm told the same useless advice by almost everyone I speak to who can't honestly discern what I go through: just talk to people, be more open. Well, that's all fine and good, but how exactly does one do that? I can understand if you consider it a foreign concept for someone to have trouble talking to people, but I stand here before all of you to tell you that, yes, for me, it is a huge fucking issue, and maybe if I weren't such an anxious mess, constantly frightened by other people's perceptions of me while fighting off demons from childhood that never bothered me until I became an adolescent, then sure, talking with others wouldn't be a big problem with me.
What worsens the problem is when I talk to people who are open to the idea of wanting to meet me and stuff, but then they learn certain aspects of me that, well, don't apply with a large majority of western society.
No, I don't have any friends here.
Yes, all of the friends I currently have only exist online, and I've met about three of them in person.
Yes, I'm a virgin.
No, I don't own a car.
Yes, I live at home.
No, I don't particularly go out a lot.
No, I don't go to college, and I definitely haven't come close to finishing it.
Yes, I'm Hispanic, but my Spanish sucks and my dancing skills don't exist.
Yes, I'm 23 and all these things apply to me.
Outward appearances don't bother me. I definitely could stand to lose a lot of weight, but I have a pleasant face and my body isn't that hideous. Plus, I dress sharp, even though my wardrobe could use more adulty influence. And I could definitely do some experimenting with my hair.
The thing is, it's weird to have to be honest about myself with people who lead, I don't know, more normal lives than I do. My idea of normal goes something along the lines of, "does other things with other people, probably doesn't spend entire weeks at home when they're not working." It's already kind of taxing to have to answer any of my co-workers when they ask what I did over the weekend, and I answer honestly, "Oh, nothing", which eventually causes them to wonder if I ever do anything over the weekend.
It's even more difficult when I have to be honest with strangers who really, honestly want to give me a chance, and then they learn certain details about me, and then they start to question what the hell my deal is, and why exactly I am as anti-social as I seem to be. The thing is, anti-social seems to insinuate that I actively try to avoid people, and while that tends to be the case with certain types of individuals (the kind who you, your friends, and everyone else seems to hate,) I personally believe that every person is worth a chance at getting to know better, even if they seem to imbue a certain aura about them that makes you think twice before going forward. Of course, almost all of the time, I do go forward, because, hey, what the hell, right?
It's not so easy for other people, because most everyone I meet already has a circle of friends, and inserting yourself into that circle isn't an easy task. I'm fine with inserting people into my life because, well, there's no one else who's really there. But it's tough on my end because I'm not exactly representative of any kind of social more, other than that of the total loser, so it's hard to convince others that I'm a valuable addition to their own lives. I don't know if I necessarily have baggage of any sort, but I do have various issues that I'm willing to address. Of course, it's incredibly difficult to translate said issues to those who can't begin to conceive their existence, so in the end I represent a risk -- someone who may be worth the time, but someone who could be a potential annoyance. To some people, even if the risk is low, it's still a risk, and one that can't be run because of how their own lives are.
That's why I personally wish I could meet more people like myself who, quite frankly, are equally downtrodden but want to make more of an effort to become human beings whom the rest of the world can accept. I mean, I'm not a complete aberration of an individual -- I work, I dress nice, I shower before I go out most times, and I try to enjoy the beauty of nature and the creations of others. But really, shouldn't I be the kind of person who should have more friends than I do now, and shouldn't I be the kind of person who should be happy with being alive without ever thinking of all kinds of random worries at once?
I mean, I think so. |
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| A Message |
[Feb. 4th, 2008|12:57 am] |
I don't like being brief. Being brief robs me of being able to say everything that I feel at a certain moment. It forces me to compress my feelings into a tiny, shallow space, cutting corners with the feelings and thoughts that I rarely get a chance to express because of a serious lack of emotional support.
With that in mind, I feel the need to address the fact that I rarely write on this LJ anymore. It's an issue that's been sticking at my craw and one that I thought needed to be brought up, if possibly because it's keeping me from trying to move on and pen more entries about why I think Hillary Clinton looks like the bride of Satan. It's not because life has caused me to step away from it or because I don't care anymore about the various benefits of expressing my thoughts on a public forum for all kinds of people to see.
Lately, I feel as though my thoughts are being repressed by the attitudes of certain people who make me feel as though having certain ideas are wrong, and that taking the time to write them is a waste of both my time and theirs. Now, I won't say who these people are, because I'm not trying to condemn them, and also because it's not their fault I feel this way. But it needs to be said... as much as I know that most of the shit I write on here is one-note silliness that can be ignored within 12 hours, it also happens to be my only voice at times, a voice I happily use to remind myself that I'm a human being capable of emotions and feelings. I know it sounds emo and faggy, but, even though this is a publicly viewable site that can be accessed by anyone searching for a phrase on Google that only shows up in six hits with my site being one of them, it also happens to be a personal space where I dictate the content.
So when people read an entry and act as though I should feel like an idiot for writing something they may not agree with, it does affect me, because it basically says to me, "What the hell are you doing trying to express an opinion? Jesus Christ, you're not capable of that. Leave it to people who are more knowledgeable on the topic, and just go back to AIMing your friends or masturbating or doing whatever it is you do in your pathetic life." In fairness, that may not be how it's intended to come out, but that's what it's interpreted as, whether you or I like it or not.
I'm not expecting an apology, and, quite frankly, I'm not asking for one, because there's nothing to be sorry about. This is mostly a little note to remind those of you that still read this that there is a lot of effort that goes into making these entries. So if you feel like debating me, then fine, debate. But don't do so in a manner that makes me feel like an idiot for writing these in the first place. And just a reminder... if you don't like what you read, remember that I'm not forcing you to read these (unless I badger you on AIM to check out what I wrote... in which case, disregard all this and continue giving me shit.) So the option is yours to de-friend me or stop lurking. Believe me, I've read enough offensive material on LJ, and my response was never to troll or make the author feel bad (even when I felt they deserved it), but, rather, to just step away and pretend like the material never existed.
And such is your choice, as well. |
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[Jan. 28th, 2008|02:16 am] |
Over the past weekend, two people from Reno IMed me responding to different things I posted/signed up to online, with one of them inviting me for ice cream and the other inviting me to a concert in the coming week.
Does this happen to anyone else? Or was this, like, a karmaic instance resulting from a brutal day at work? |
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| "They watch the lights on your server go blinkety-blink. Blinkety-blink." |
[Jan. 9th, 2008|10:27 am] |
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I WANT THIS BOOK SO BAD |
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| OK, seriously, enough already. |
[Jan. 5th, 2008|09:43 am] |
Look, all the power to you if you derive some amount of joy from the latest Britney Spears character suicide, but I've honestly had enough. I really don't need news broadcasts filtering out stories about people in other distant corners of the world who have the potential to provide something valuable to the world, so that we may hear the latest goings-on of people who were famous eight years ago but haven't done anything of note in the last three, yet still manage to get in the headlines by being pathetic human beings and having an address in the Hollywood Hills.
A part of me feels sorry for her, although not in the same faggy way that Chris Crocker does. Britney was basically one of several products of Corporate America™ who, at a dangerously young age, were purposely tarted up, given unlimited amounts of money, and put in front of cameras at all times, so that we could admire them for their wealth, beauty, and lifestyle, in the hopes of creating a new, plasticized deity figure in the same vein as Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur (minus the artistic credibility and legitimate passion for their craft). The whole point, of course, was to get the richest among us to consume the same things these people were hawking on TV or wearing at a public appearance, and putting unlimited amounts of money in the coffers of these corporate raiders who could care less how destructive their actions would become towards all of western society.
So now we have these poor, filthy, unwashed souls being repeatedly raped by the media because of our sweeping love of schaudenfreude. And, indeed, we continue to laugh loudly and heartily while these people are willingly crawling through the mud, which they choose to do because of their desperate, psychological need to be loved and/or pitied by millions in an attempt to recapture what they had oh so long ago. The thing is, very few people are learning the right lesson, because reality TV and other mediums are creating brand new glamerous young people for us to worship, people who will eventually fall by the wayside and be replaced, leaving them no choice but to either contribute something more valuable to society, settle into a comfortable life, or repeat the cycle and try to get in the headlines by proving themselves to be similarly pathetic human beings. We adore their clothing and jewelry and cars, and continue to consume items we don't need for the sake of wanting to be them, not knowing or understanding what pure luck and pulled strings it took for them to be as famous and glamorous-looking as they are, and failing to understand the real value of fame and fortune.
Fame is a trap, and those who desire it most get what they ask for. It's better to be loved by three people over a lifetime than to be loved by millions for 15 minutes apiece.
Here's an idea: stop visiting TMZ for a while and start putting your attention to those people who are more worthy of it. |
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| Destiny's Adopted Child |
[Dec. 21st, 2007|01:37 am] |
What exactly is my destiny?
This is the question that does more harm than good to my psyche when I take a moment to think about it, and the various answers I can come up with. No single answer is conclusive. I know I can continue to live, as long as I will myself to do so, but what will I be doing? Being where I am now? Being somewhere farther? Or maybe even being in even worse shape than today?
I chose to give myself some time off to confront this issue, and, even though I write this with the intent of tackling the big questions, I'm not going to go as far as I desire, unless I consult with others and see what measures I need to take. The problem, of course, is that I always have a dearth of others to consult with. That's another issue entirely, yes, but I do appreciate the fact that there are people who exist who can make me feel human and lend me an emotional hand, even if I go years without seeing them live and in person.
Back to the issue at hand, though. I often wonder if my need to create an ideal situation for myself hampers my ability to be able to freely go about life and let circumstances and my advancing education – not necessarily through academic methods – be able to mold the future I desire. Yes, I'd like to move to San Francisco or New York or, hell, even back to L.A. I wouldn't mind going to Arizona or Vegas or Baltimore or even Cincinnati. But is it something I really need to do? Do I absolutely have to let my worries about not moving to any of these places command how I run my life?
Thinking about the ideal more often than not makes me feel inadequate. I can hate my half-sister and my father on an hourly basis for moving me to Reno when I felt perfectly content with the little ghetto cottage in South L.A., because, even if I had to sacrifice a multitude of personal security in doing so, at least I had a realistic opportunity to build a hell of a future for myself in a place that makes one feel significant.
But what does bitching about what could've been do to further my own cause? Well, nothing, of course, other than being able to tell stories to strangers, like this one time I stood at a desolate bus stop in downtown L.A. for an hour in the middle of the wee hours of the evening. I kill myself thinking about L.A., asking for a past that is long dead, and naturally getting nothing in return, other than fond memories and brutal recollections that provide a convincing argument why I should never return there under any circumstances.
It's not that I've lost my desire to want to move back to a major or even a mid-major (read: has an NFL team, but not much else) city. It's just that I think so much about it, that it distracts me from trying to see what roads lie ahead for me NOW that can ultimately lead me there. The nitpicking involved with the fact that I live in a lousy state with a lousy educational system is ignorant of the fact that I am beyond whatever school I go to, whether that be Nevada, UCLA, Harvard, or even CSU Stanislaus. It's also ignorant of the fact that how far I choose to take myself is as far as I deserve to go; I can bitch all day about everything I have to live with, but what is bitching going to do but burn bridges? Considering I'm in short supply of actual, you know, acquaintances, that's not exactly a good thing to do.
Setting goals is a nice thing, but maybe it's best to look one month down the line rather than one decade. Being friendless has the added benefit of being incredibly flexible, and even at 23 I can still try to revise my goals and see what I want for myself. What I want is simple: I just want to work at a job that I can honestly say I'm happy doing, make a decent living out of it that allows me to live comfortably enough, and, what the hell, procreate and have a child to teach the ways of MST 3K, The Beatles, and advanced computer repair. Or art, but I don't know jack about art, despite the fact I passed the AP Art History exam with a 4.
It's a simple goal, yet I make it seem so complicated in my head. I worry about tomorrow as though there's some sort of deadline looming that decides the fate of my life and the eternity beyond it. I feel as though I need to add detail to my goal in order to inspire myself, but all I seem to do is stress myself out when some small thing turns out wrong, and thus I need to revise my goals, still meticulous in detail, and if something goes wrong again... well, here we go again.
So here's what I know I would enjoy doing: fixing other people's computers for a living. Perhaps starting a business in that field. Or I could write about God knows what as a paid job. If it involves me making good use of the English language in a way that doesn't make me feel dirty (ie, political or corporate propaganda), then I'm all for it. Maybe even writing about fixing other people's computers?
That's all, really. Should it matter where I do it? Maybe not now, but it's something to consider down the line when I'm in a greater position to consider such options. But not now, when options don't really exist other than “entering data like a robot” or “hard labor that is guaranteed to make you look like an even bigger pansy than you already are.” So why nitpick?
Anyway, as far as the present, it's obvious that things need to change. How to go about it is something that is kind of lost on me, but something I need to figure out sooner than not. I know I need to drive as long as I live here. I know I need a job that will make me feel more financially and personally secure. I know I need to establish goofy adult things like credit and a personal life that doesn't revolve around my custom PC. And, yes, I know I need to control my health so that I can ensure a possibility that I'll live to see my children emotionally drift away from me. But, again, it's not easy to map these things out.
And so the beat, as they say, goes on... |
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| Teaching a Republican Spanish (And the Hijinks That Ensue!) |
[Dec. 10th, 2007|12:34 pm] |
I couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to entertain myself by reading about the televised debate between Republican candidates on Spanish-language TV that happened last night. As much as I've tried to actively avoid all the political hoopla, I found myself fascinated by the events that transpired. Here's some of the highlights, courtesy of the L.A. Times:The top candidates, whose words were translated simultaneously into Spanish, stuck to their hard lines on illegal immigration but offered some nuance tailored for the Univision audience. Both Huckabee and McCain called for compassion for illegal immigrants.
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The GOP encounter was highly anticipated because all of the candidates except for McCain initially refused to attend. And most of the top candidates courted conservative voters in part by opposing legislation that would have created a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants -- setting off a debate that has sparked mass demonstrations and prompted organizations such as Univision to launch voter registration drives.
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Thompson at one point seemed to poke fun at the debate and its moderators, Univision anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas. When Salinas drew applause from the audience at the University of Miami by asking about government policies that split illegal immigrant parents from their U.S. citizen children, the former Tennessee senator quipped sarcastically: "Congratulations. That's the first question that's got applause tonight, so it must be a very good one."
Thompson did not answer the question. So, in summary:- The candidates went on Spanish-language TV and maintained their stance on immigration laws, while trying to show "compassion", whatever that is.
- The candidates refused to attend in the first place, until they realized that doing so was awakening a sleeping giant.
- The candidates didn't take the event seriously, anyway, showing themselves to be distant from the audience they were addressing, and apparently not even answering the questions that were of greater concern to them.
A couple of other things worth pointing out: the candidates spent the majority of the debate praising the merits of the war using celebratory terms (which, according to the Times, the Republican party has lately tried to actively avoid in public discourse) and the debate was supposed to attract 4 million viewers. Four million people! That's more than the Stanley Cup Finals average on national TV!
I like to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt at times, but this event proved to me what I've always felt about them, which is that they're basically a party of old white men who are out-of-touch with the changing social fabric around them, and only consider them an equal when it comes to economic matters. We don't want you here, but we still want you to pay your taxes. You also have to love them for having open contempt for their intelligence by being all sunshine and kittens about the war by using words that most of the English-speaking public stopped buying about two years ago.
Their stance of illegal immigration has never failed to leave me freezing cold, because they always do a bad job of hiding their racist tendencies. (I think they just assume most of the Latin public who should be offended by the things they don't speak English, anyway, so why the hell bother with the doublespeak for at least one issue?) The thing about illegal immigration is that the solution is really simple: make border security stronger, and offer swift punishment to any individual who bothers to look the other way while giving an unnaturalized citizen paid work. But the problem with addressing the the topic is that it depends too much on emotional responses, and so we have horrible slime like Tom Tancredo (who curiously was not part of the debate) releasing sensationalist ads referring to immigrants in "you people"-type terms, with the purpose of trying to scare people into thinking that illegal immigration equals tattooed hyper-criminals crossing our borders and killing our people as though the end result will end up being every small American city turning into L.A. (a.k.a. a crime-infested, pee-soaked heckhole.)
This isn't to say that the other side (the side that thinks we should have open borders and a quick legalization process for everyone who's already here) doesn't also depend on similar emotional games, but the difference is that the Republicans are displaying blatant racism by branding the immmigrants as the problem, even though enhanced security and tougher stances against illegal hiring practices could solve the problem easier than draconian raids at random McDonalds restaurants ever could.
I can only hope there's more to the candidates than a debate they were unwilling to attend in the first place, because there has to be something to the Republicans other than open racism and greed. Of course, it would be interesting to see a Democratic debate on EWTN or whatever channel they have The 700 Club on. I think they'd do it, but the same spirit of wishy-washiness will probably end up prevailing, and they'll end up being even more screwed than the GOP was, because Lord knows there's more Christians than "Mexicans" in this country built on Puritanical morals. |
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| "We'll have to raise our coffee table to have any hope of fitting in." |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|09:07 pm] |
For those of you who have 25 minutes to blow, here's one of my favorite MST 3K shorts, the elusive Robert Denby "Assignment: Venezuela".
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| Another thing. |
[Nov. 26th, 2007|01:51 pm] |
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Holiday songs bug the hell out of me. Other than this one, at least. |
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[Nov. 26th, 2007|01:41 pm] |
Some women have a weird definition of the word "cute." Where they see "cute", I usually tend to see "slutty" or "whorish."
Is "whorish" even a word? |
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| Blah blah blah politics. |
[Nov. 14th, 2007|03:37 pm] |
HERE WE GO again.
It's once again that time where we look 12 months ahead to the day when we, as a small portion of the nation, decide on who will be the man* to represent our nation as President of the United States®. During that time period, you're guaranteed to hear a lot of promises about things that may be of some vague importance to you, as well as a lot of smack talk about the people who are in direct opposition to them. It'll be like a trashy reality show with older, uglier people who wear suits devoid of any semblance of uniqueness or personality.
Most of you won't care. Some of you will blindly take it to heart all the way to Election Day. And others, like me, will pay sparing attention until we decide at the last minute to make a less-than-informed decision based primarily on aesthetics that, depending on the final results, will either make a huge impact on the future of this nation... or won't matter in the least bit.
I honestly wish the election would happen already so I could vote Dennis Kucinich Barack Obama and be done with it.
If I don't seem enthused, it's because the whole electioneering process fell out of favor with me once I got the opportunity to actually vote. My shamelessly liberal high school teachers were successful at making the political process seem sexier and more scandalous than an episode of whatever the current MTV reality hit is. The truth, of course, is that the process of voting is nothing more than trying to make a single voice heard among millions of others, and not even the entire of the American populace. Maybe it's because I moved out of L.A., where both local and state politics are more interesting than the presidential silliness. I still find some amusement in knowing that the first major issue I ever voted on (the California governer's race) was overturned a year later, and the person who I actually didn't vote for (Gray Davis) was replaced by a guy who I also didn't vote for (Detective John Kimble). The local politics here in Reno, by contrast, are about as exciting as watching bread toast. And most of Nevada votes Republican, because everyone here hates the Californian way of taxing for a superior and world-class educational and social services system.
Not that I won't vote, but I question if my own participation is due to a need to gain some sort of moral superiority over other, more extroverted members of my generation who don't think much about politics because it requires taking an interest in people who don't speak the same language as they do. Now that I think about it, it's amazing how, no matter what generation you can properly place a politician from, you can't really envision them as being an actual part of it. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton smoking dope in her dorm room, or Barack Obama listening to Sugarhill Gang records, or even Ron Paul drinking whisky and rye singing “This'll be the day that I die”?
Maybe that's why politics tend to lose me for the most part: in the end, a well-off person, acting as a representative for a loud minority of people, who was privileged enough to attend an Ivy or a pseudo-Ivy, will win out and make all the decisions for a nation of people who are not as well-off, not as well “educated”, and most certainly not the least bit similar to that loud minority. And just because Obama isn't white and Hillary doesn't have a penis doesn't mean they aren't the same kind of political puppet; it just means their cloth is made of different material. Of course, as long as the hand underneath their butts are still the same, it makes fuck all difference.
It's really sad that I feel this way, because it seems as though we as a nation have a long way to go to achieve the sort of social justice that people like Gandhi, King, and Chavez – neither of whom were politicians, by the way – died to strive for. It's amazing how horribly racist a lot of society still manages to be. The immigration issue has really brought out the worst and illogical out of every side, especially here in Reno where there's a minor backlash by ignorant people against those who choose to take advantage of a situation created by law-breaking legal citizens who choose to look the other way and give immigrants cheap jobs that only desperate teenagers, middle-school flunkies and ex-cons would take. It doesn't help that there are people of my own brotherhood who do and say stupid things with an inflated sense of entitlement, while wearing T-shirts with Che and Ernesto Zapata while not fully understanding what they stood for. And then you have other situations like Michael Richards, Don Imus, the Jena Six and all the post-9/11 racial profiling. The reason why I almost wanted to cry at the end of Crash is mostly due to the horrificly accurate portrayal of race relations in my hometown of Los Angeles, the last city to have had a large-scale race riot on par with anything that happened in the sixties.
This country has many problems, and most of them have little or nothing to do with terrorism. While the LOSERS of World War II have managed to not only join the 20th century but also go far ahead of everyone else into the 21st, a great deal of people here would rather go back to the 19th, and rather than try to do something about it, we'd rather argue into the night about petty things like the banishment of gay marriage in places where gay people would never step foot on, and the whereabouts of bombs that may not even exist. I would never vote Republican based on the fact that, even if they didn't buy into their theocratic bullshit, they're still the party that believes that some middle-class suburbanite's right to own a 62-inch plasma screen television set is more important than a poorer man or woman's right to eat.
As for the Democrats, it's been obvious since Jimmy Carter – a man who I adore, by the way, although not in a homoerotic way – that their choice of candidates other than Clinton and Gore have lacked any kind of pair of balls and just don't seem like the kind of people who would be willing to push for anything radical unless there was some kind of direct benefit, and not some silly moral one, either. Think of the Carter presidency and even the gubernatorial reign of Gray Davis, and you get what could've been the presidencies of guys like Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry. Not that the guys who beat them were any better, but Reagan and Bush Jr., assholes that they were, were not the kind to break a sweat, even when their shortsighted ideals were failing their country miserably and everyone knew it. I love Jimmy Carter, but it's not a pretty thing to read about his tendency to sweat rivers throughout the Iran crisis.
As the years and elections pass, my hope that an individual will step out of the shadows and become the savior of American society – regardless of his or her political affiliation – fades ever so slowly. It's obvious that American elections will always be based on who can scream the loudest while making the most coherent point, whether we agree with it or not. Sometimes, I wonder if the problem isn't with people like me, who don't see the hope forthcoming, and would rather run away to foreign countries and occasionally coming home and discuss our views with others in places with greater concentrations of people who believe in the same things that we do. It's amazing how people on the left tend to be more afraid of going to “red states” than they are of places like Cuba and China. I live in a red state, and while I would personally prefer to go back to the intolerant and egotistical mess that is Los Angeles than stay another minute here, the fact is that, by moving here, I understand more about the America that my high school teachers never taught us about and may not have even known a single thing about. Instead of running away, we should be doing something. Don't you think?
* I don't have too many problems with Hillary, but there's a lot of misogynistic people in this country who don't find the idea of being bossed around by some crazy bitch to be all that welcoming. Therefore, I have my doubts about her chances. |
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| The End of a Love Affair |
[Nov. 5th, 2007|12:40 am] |
SO I'VE decided to get a car.
I used to think that the first thing I needed to do the minute I found a better-paying, full-time job was move out and rent an apartment. No more dependence on the old folks! No more worries about the mortality of your parents! No more having to give in to the temptations of the various bad things mom and dad bring home from Costco because you have a weak will!
I've now changed my mind, and I've decided I want a car. No, scratch that, I need a car. I don't even know how to drive it, and I feel as though I need it.
This is not Los Angeles. This is not a city where bus-taking is a convenient alternative for people who realize that the pigheadedness of self-absorbed, trend-slave transplants from places where the car is king is doing more harm than good, simply because public transport is viewed as third-world, even though it's actually world-class. This is not a city that has buses in every major thoroughfare and visions of new rail lines already on the drawing board. This is a place where driving is justified because job centers are not centrally located enough to cause problematic traffic. This is a place where a ten-minute drive within city limits is a one-hour, crosstown bus ride which is good for a short nap, but actually forces me to cut an hour of sleeping time. This is a place where driving can still be relaxing, as long as you're heading in the right direction at the right hour.
There used to be a time, now so long ago, where I viewed the bus as my own pathetic form of independence. In L.A., I could spend hours, and possibly entire days, just sitting on the 40-foot vehicles to hear myself think, always going somewhere new every day, sometimes sitting alone on a 30-minute suburban route, or standing amongst dozens on a crowded 720 on Wilshire headed towards Santa Monica. I once killed an entire night, from sunset to dawn (including a route on Sunset!) doing exactly that. I was reprimanded the next day for not calling, and I felt horribly guilty about it, but I still look back with fondness on that frightening evening where I just decided to run the fuck away and disappear without anyone knowing what I was doing. I watched a midnight showing of a movie at Grauman's Chinese, crossed a county line, returned to L.A. with several morning commuters, and then headed straight to the Pacific Ocean to kill more time before ultimately going home. Why? Because I could.
That's the past. You can't do that anymore as long as you're here.
And so it is. I'm now saving up my money for a vehicle that has the potential to add more flavor to my life, something to make me feel differently about what I have so far perceived to be a valley of endless boredom. Yes, gas and insurance immediately remove any element of romanticism I might have about the practice of driving, and Lord only knows if my erratic nature will translate into nightmarish driving episodes. But now is the time and the place to do something I've willingly put off for many years now, and, ultimately, the freedom I can gain from this will probably end up being greater than the freedom I would gain from living in a cheap apartment. And the monthly bills will be about the same, anyway. |
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[Oct. 28th, 2007|12:07 am] |
I've constantly wrestled with the notion that I may not be an intelligent person. The thing about intelligence as a concept is that it's mostly relative depending on the kind of people you're around. One person may believe that someone who is intelligent can calculate complex mathematical equations, comprehend the meaning of early 20th century Irish literature, and understand the basic tenets of Eastern religions... while another may think that someone who is intelligent is someone who can memorize the last twenty Super Bowl champions. If neither applies — and, in my case, it doesn't — how intelligent can I really be?
Think of it this way: is a person who almost dropped out of high school, bounced around numerous community colleges, relocated from a world class city to a hick town in Nevada, and has only worked low-wage jobs while living at home with his parents someone who you would consider intelligent? If you didn't know who it was — and maybe even if you do — your immediate reaction would be no, of course not. But what does it make me, then? Average? Below-average?
Image is meaningless. I don't try to put on a facade about what I enjoy. When I say I enjoy pro wrestling and AC/DC, I mean it. When I also say I enjoy piano jazz and herbal tea, I'm not lying, either. But I don't say it often because... well, mostly because no one's around to hear me say it. Aside from that, though, I don't say it because I don't set out to make it a point of pride. I know I like these things. Therefore, it's pointless to repeat it to people who don't care. When I do say that I like these things, it's because I'm around people who may be interested in one of the said things, and therefore want to converse on the topic. Maybe I'll write about it in this journal to get someone to lend an ear. Okay, perhaps it contradicts the above point about me not wanting to make my interests a point of pride, but the internet is just a fictional environment inhabited by people lying out of their asses about themselves, anyway.
The point is, when I put aside the notion of reading a book in favor of channel surfing, or when I ignore the news about Darfur in favor of watching a video of Charles Barkley trying to hold his breath in a fish tank, in addition to all the circumstances of my life, am I simply confirming a notion that I'm in no way intelligent, or is it rock-solid proof that I am not intelligent? I don't think I'm dumb by any means, but I'm willing to accept my status if it means I can continue to be myself with a better understanding of who are the assholes who think less of me because of their own ridiculous judgments of what makes a person "better" or "advanced." |
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| To readers of this journal and close friends, |
[Oct. 22nd, 2007|12:00 am] |
I'm at a point in my own life where I no longer have the motivation to be creative on a frequent basis. The thing is, I'm undergoing a personal crisis wherein I can't seem to grasp where I'm headed in the long and short terms, while at the same time battling unknown demons that could be anything from mental illness to the common cold. And though I try to be lighthearted about my societal standing, the fact is that being almost friendless in a city I had no business moving to, while having very little in the way of finances, is taking an emotional toll on me, and it's causing an increasingly negative effect on both my mental and physical state.
I share this with you for several reasons, not the least of which is to remind everyone here that there is, in fact, a living, breathing person behind the journal and behind the "Rob" persona. Unfortunately, it's a person who feels lost, alone, and even sad at times. I never like to delve into this part of myself because of the all-too-common backlash by hip internet types against self-serving sob stories. Still, it never feels right to give the impression that everything seems all right by trying to avoid details about myself, especially when I consider some of you to be very good, honest-to-God friends.
So life being what it is, as much as I wish that I could maximize my LJ's potential as an outlet to be able to entertain myself and possibly others, I really don't see myself being a "regular" poster as I was in the years after high school and prior to the move to Reno. Hopefully, as I continue to find answers about myself and determine what exactly it is that matters most to me, I'll return to being the me that many of you have come to enjoy. But it's going to be a long road, and it may not be one that some of you will want to travel.
Thanks for hearing me out. |
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