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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

  • A Personal Credo.

    I'm in a class at school where we do a bunch of random tasks that are considered essential for high functioning students.  In essence, the class is a title; it makes me a "gifted" student.  A student with a GIEP.  Usually I do whatever task we're given without a hesitation, until today when I heard the prompt and did a double take.  The task was simple: "write your own personal credo in the style of 'All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.'"  I began with, "Just live."  Then there was some elaborating jargon, discussing about how "life is the greatest gift" and that "we are our accomplishments."  I got about halfway down the page before I snuck a peek at my neighbor's paper.

    "Never fuck a ho with herpes."  I was polite enough not to ask if it was a personal credo from experience or if it was just another "All I Need To Know I Learned From MTV."  At that point, I returned to my paper and looked at it as if I had been drawing stars and pretty rainbows and I took the piece of paper and began to furiously scribble out everything, until the words were illegible.  When it time to hand it in, I approached my teacher's desk and thrust the paper right in his face.  He sighed with a disapproving look.

    "You have until midnight.  And that means a clean, typed, thoughtful copy."  I scampered to lunch and at my table inspiration hit me.  Actually, a low-flying sandwich hit me to the cheers of "L-O-L ... YOU GOT TOTALLY PWN3D, DUDE.  LAWL LAWL LAWL."  Later that night, I gave my last minute piece a name:

    “All I Need To Know I Learned From The Internet.”

    -In life, there are Macs and PCs.

    -Everything you need to know is out there, most of it is impossible to find, or on Wikipedia.

    -If you can imagine it, there is probably fetish porn dealing with it.

    -The Chinese government is censoring you.

    -Whatever you say will be misquoted and then used to offend others.

    -File sharing is fun until somebody gets a virus.

    -Your equipment may not be compatible.

    -There are computers harder, better, faster, stronger and that have more RAM than you.

    -It’s always a good time to upgrade.

    -The next generation makes you obsolete.

    -There is no god.  Only Al Gore.

    -Someone out there is wrong, and when you stop complaining, they will keep being wrong.

    -It’s ok to steal, as long as the RIAA doesn’t catch you.

    -Just because you are “1337” does not mean you are cool.

    -No one reads your shitty blog.

    -Politics can only lead to hate mail.

    -Do not talk about 4chan.

    -DO NOT TALK ABOUT 4CHAN!

    -You have just lost the game.

    -In the end, your life amounts to a 32-bit ISP.

    -Some errors are fatal.

    -All your base are belonging to us.

    -You’re only as good as the people using you.

    -Watch your cookies.

    -The public domain lives!

    -Having a 3.5-inch floppy is considered a bad thing.

    -Spam is just another facet of life.

    -Everyone is a little bit racist.

    -Facebooking is a synonym for stalking.

    -Love is one part eloquence, one part correspondence, and two parts profile picture.

    -Whatever the idea is, someone has already thought of it.

    -The world is a series of tubes, located in gray corrugated steel buildings.

    -The speed at which you connect is everything.

    -If it’s unprotected and there to be accessed, it should be considered free.

    -Just torrent it.

    -Your Asian counterpart will destroy you.



    All suggestions are welcome. (Despite my essay already being sent!)

    Edit... I wrote this, and then forgot to un-private it.  Haha.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

  • God Is Powered By Irony.

    It was Good Friday.  I had been composing music for some time that afternoon, probably for a fair four hours or so, when at three o'clock I decided it was time to consume a late lunch.  My current song had reached a snag and there was no way around the musical gridlock.  I came to the conclusion I would feel better after a plate full of leftovers and I left my hovel in the basement towards the kitchen upstairs. I had hardly reached the kitchen when my father walked in and told me to fetch my brother.  It was obvious that both of us had done something wrong to offend him and now our consequence was a lecture.  Two minutes later when my father had us both standing before him, he began his speech, "You'd better sit down."  Neither my brother nor I made any motion towards the couch.  We knew this routine... never recede, never surrender.  But there was something different, "Please," his voice was quiet now, "Please, sit for me."  Nothing.  We stood our ground and met his stare, which in that instant began to melt away into sorrow.

    "Chuck's dead."  My father choked out as he stumbled forward into us and began to cry.  Shane and I had caught him awkwardly, and as we held him there it began to dawn on us what the news really meant.  Our grandfather was deceased, gone, and dead.  He would not be taking us on boat rides in the Chesapeake; he would not be getting plastered at our holiday party; he was not human anymore.  My grandfather was now a corpse.  And as we supported my father, whose grief was now falling in droplets upon our faces, I restrained my urge to cry with him.

    After we had calmed my father down, I realized I didn't want to be home when my mother arrived.  She would probably be worse stupor, Chuck being her father, and I couldn't bear to see her in as much pain as my father was going through.  He was now taking up his spot on the couch, and went to snatch my coat so I could escape to the local park to walk of my elegy of doubt.  I opened the door into the garage, and came face to face with my mother.

    My mother doesn't cry.  She walked into the house, past me, through me, and placed her gym bag on the counter.  The door where she entered was still hanging open, and I stood there against the cold, unable to move.  My father couldn't find the words to address her.  I could hear his befuddled thinking from the other room, and my mother, who, for the first time in my eighteen years of existence, broke down.  I stood there for what felt like an eternity, in that clichéd way where, suddenly there was nowhere to go.  It was overcast outside, and I could see it on the other side of the garage.  I wouldn't want to die on an overcast day.

    My grandfather died in Florida.  That morning, he and my grandmother went to the Tampa airport to pick up my cousin and uncle.  The airport was ninety away.  He drove and picked them up and drove them back to his house.  There was a good three hours when he could've just had a heart attack at the wheel.  He didn't.  They got back to the house, changed into their bathing suits and went to the beach, my grandparents, my uncle and my cousin.  They drove to the beach and began to set up shop... towels, blankets, sunscreen, and my grandfather got a big beach umbrella from the car.  He slammed it into the ground, and just stood there for a moment, closed his eyes, and fell backwards into the sand... dead.

    Now that Easter is over, the Funeral is tomorrow.  I won't be around until Saturday because my precious computer and I will be parted for the duration.  I don't know what to think of funeral.  I didn't really know him that well.  I mean, it's sad, but I'm sure he's a better place.  Or a reasonably priced morgue.  My mother hasn't cried since Easter morning.  She's doing better, trying to look on the bright side.  My family cancelled its Easter Luncheon, but the good news is for the next week I'll be consuming parts of an eleven-pound ham we didn't cook.

    News keeps trickling in.  Odd coincidences, some so unexplainable.  Chuck was a damn good Catholic.  Devout, if you will.  He died on Good Friday.  Right next to where they set up on the beach was a minister and his wife, who later showed up at the hospital with flowers.  A teacher, who was evidently on the beach at the moment this all occurred, came to comfort my twelve-year-old cousin.  Chuck didn't die at the wheel, other the entire family would've died.  When he was declared dead at the hospital, there was a priest already there, and was going to a sermon at the hospital, but instead gave Chuck the last rites.  The entire community where my grandmother lives in Florida decided to have a massive wake for him.

    The most ironic part was that since my mother was six, Chuck had been telling his family that one day he would, "just up and die... right on the beach... of a heart attack."  Fifty years after first making that remark, he made it come true.  And against all that shock, the crying, the confusion, the drinking...

    He gave us fair warning.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Friday, March 21, 2008

  • An Instrument Of Divine Justice.

    When I was a little kid, younger than I am now, I had always dreamed of being older and what special abilities it would bring.  I could see myself driving and voting and holding a job. It was a great little fantasy world that seemed just beyond the horizon.  "Someday...” I thought.  "Someday, I'll have that privilege."

    Surely enough, that day came and I was stuck with a part time job that paid minimum wage; most of which went to auto insurance payments and gas money.  What a lovely existence, right?  I mean, where was the fantasy or being able to drive around, unhindered by the lives of my parents?  Now I can come home and complain about traffic.  I thought my parents would give me a little more freedom to do what I wanted.  Nothing!  What a life, right?  I just wanted a moment where I could appreciate not being twelve.

    Today, that moment occurred.

    I was out wasting gas on my way to my girlfriend's house when I decided to take a back road way through a residential section.  The speed limit read thirty, so I decided to stay at a clean thirty-five and not get arrested.  You could say that by this time, I was "cruising."  I was taking my time, playing music, and just enjoying the experience of not walking.  And as I turned down a long stretch of road I saw a line of three children, twelve years old or so.  And their appearance shocked me.

    The boy on the left was rotund and sported three nose rings.  He wore eyeliner, and looked like he had just rolled out of bed five minutes prior to our encounter.  He wore black cargo pants that were dragging on the ground over the tops of his shoes, and a gray sweatshirt six sizes too large.

    The other two to his right were holding hands, a girl and a guy respectively.  Both of them sported jet-black hair and dreadlocks, if you'd even call them dreadlocks.  The girl was sporting a shirt that was black spotted with little white hearts and with a neckline plunging enough that any reasonable parent would've flipped shit.  She also wore a pair of jeans that appeared to have been mauled by a bear.  Her face looked as if it had been stretched and flattened with a rolling pin and there was enough mascara in her eyes to make them look like big sunken holes.  Her boyfriend had the same pants as the other boy, except he was skinny and the pants were falling down, now to around mid-thigh.  His one arm had a tattoo that looked like it had been drawn on with a sharpie marker, and his shirt was black with the phrase "It would be better if you stopped talking."

    All three appeared to be obviously disgruntled middle-schoolers, and at that moment it dawned on me that I had to perform God's will.

    I slowed down to about ten miles mph and let the car coast while I fixed the stereo on the dashboard just right.  Within a few moments I had the bass, treble, and midrange set to max and my iPod set to play at the push of the button.  Nearly there, I let all of my windows roll down.  I was close.... closer... and suddenly in hearing range.

    The strains of Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes" erupted from my '96 Jeep and brought all the attention that was focused on the middle-schoolers' "image" to my car and it's lovely, lovely bass.  All three turned and stared, amplified by their hideous make-up and the scowls on their faces.  Obviously, no one had informed them the youniverse revolves around me, not them.  And it felt so good.  I had the car, I had the iPod, and it was a quaint lesson in reality.

    It also made a great story to tell my girlfriend.

    But this notwithstanding, I felt like a real jerk later, despite Jack Johnson being one of my preferred artists I drive to.  All I did was exercise my power over people smaller and more underprivileged than me.  I know if I were a punk kid twelve year old walking through the rich side of town with my punk twelve-year-old girlfriend, I'd certainly be pissed and offended that the world doesn't revolve around me.  It probably would've ruined my whole day.  Mayhap I would've shouted to the asshole, "This is why we can't have good people in the world!"  ...Actually, my apparent punkness would've probably translated it to, "Fuck off, dude!"

    Afterwards, I closed up the windows and returned my stereo to a tolerable decibel.  I now understand why people do bad things.  Morally it feels wrong, but in the grand scheme of things it could someday make them more mature individuals.  Or I'm just trying to justify being a bad, judgmental person.  If getting older has made me anything, it has made me more judgmental and opinionated.  I know who and what I support, what I don't like, and what I think is acceptable.  This may or may not be a detrimental to the rest of my life.

    But it definitely feels good not to be twelve.

Monday, March 17, 2008

  • Worst LSD Trip, Ever.

    I only accomplished three things this weekend, which is good because usually I don't accomplish anything.

    Saturday was an accomplishment within itself.  I woke up at a reasonable hour after a good nights sleep of six hours.  Why is this important?  Because for the past week I've averaged four hours a night, due to over-scheduling and bad procrastination habits.  So I got six hours, and that's only the beginning.  I woke up at 8:30 and went to church choir at 9:00, where I learned that on Palm Sunday (the very next day) I would not be singing.  (This becomes important later!)  At 10:00, I went to the basement of the church for handbell choir rehearsal where our teen choir practiced "The Heavens Are Telling," a piano/handbell choir duet by Haydn.  By 11:00 I was home.

    During the afternoon, a few friends and I decided to go see Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland at a New Jersey high school.  The drive was two hours and we watched Hook, a now seventeen-year-old movie. It was good, as compared to the musical, which fell flat on its face.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a big theatre critic but I usually forgive most small error as a result of nerves.  But this was a monstrosity!  It was bad enough I slept through the second act.  Alice had absolutely no actual emotion.  She was being played by a puppet; a puppet with a squeaky voice and no acting ability whatsoever.  To defend the choice of show, the program explained that it was "mainly done to show off the artist's abilities."  The students choreographed, costumed, did make-up for, did tech for, and created the whole damn stage.

    Where shall I begin?  Only the White Rabbit danced.  He was the only one.  He was good, and whosoever that kid is, I hope he gets the leading role next year because he was the only saving grace.  The tech was ok.  The make-up was fine.  The stage and set pieces were... bad.  There wasn't a set through most of it.  Maybe one tree onstage.  There were two backdrops.  One that was a hole, another that was a forest.  During the scene where Alice "fell" down the rabbit hole, she spun around on stage "crying" (if you'd even call it that, maybe forcefully wailing) while the techies flashed a strobe light. (Which made a lady in the audience have an episode)  But the real catch of the scene were the three stage hands, all dressed in black that came onstage and held above their heads wooden furniture that had been spray painted neon green and orange.  Why?  I have no idea.  Their shoes were bleach white sneakers and that was all I could focus on.  On the way home, we called our director's cell and told her about what happened.  Her only response was a moment of silence, and then she began to mutter the Hail Mary.  We hung up before she could finish.

    In retrospect, a little part of me died at that moment.

    That night, luckily, I fell asleep at ten PM after a conversation with my girlfriend.  I awoke twelve hours later.  Twelve!  I had never felt so awake since... since... September.  It was good feeling.  The rest of Sunday was spent filling out my voter registration card. (Because the PA primary is actually going to mean something, despite being four months post Super Tuesday)  I chose to be democrat, because McCain is already the Republican candidate.  I don't even know what to think of the Democrat party candidates anymore.  I don't particularly care for McCain, but with the Michigan primary being repeated, I can only see trouble on the horizon.  I mean, I'm glad I'm able to vote in the upcoming election, it's my civic duty, but I don't even know what kind of a choice I'll have.  The Democrats are in scramble mode, but everything is just kind of falling apart.

    And, finally, today, now yesterday, I finished my English essay- my third accomplishment of the weekend.  It's five pages long and took me a good four hours to complete, but I'm pleased with the result.

    But for tonight, I'll leave you with the evil theme of Shane's flash movie.  (It's more interesting than a five page paper, no?)

    Three days until Spring Break.

SomewhereInTheBetween

  • Visit SomewhereInTheBetween's Xanga Site
    • Name: Zak
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 2/18/2008

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