Author: admin

This is the first time since wednesday I’ve felt vaguely human. I refuse to say I’m out of the woods, but this brief respite in which I am once again possessed of hydration and common sense. At some point during the night I began to think about the idea of death and what that means to me. I’ve always thought of death as a cessation of conscious thought. However, the reduced capacity to think and to function is a sort of death–as in the death of the person you are. Given the coming holiday it isn’t too much of a leap to make the connection between recovery and resurrection. Both are, in a sense, a return to who you are meant to be from a state where you aren’t what you are meant to be.

I’m interested in language and specifically in the philosophical connections between how different cultures speaking the same language interpret things. Resurrection and Recovery are two words that have different meanings from place to place. Some use each in the more casual sense–Resurrecting a dead franchise and such. At this point I am recovering my sense of myself as a writer and perhaps my sense of a writing career.

Some Thoughts:

1. If I imagine writing with a British accent, it changes the prose. I believe accent is indicative of culture and the responsibility of language and tonality of that culture. This can be a good trick to remember when writing about different cultures, especially those being created on the fly. Creating an accent formalizes a sense of what that culture represents.
2. I’m still fueled by the Science Channel and its ilk. Knowledge is power, but again it is all in how you interpret the word. Knowledge is power to me in the sense of fuel.

There’s no doubt about it–I despise being sick. The problem with sickness is not only that it physically knocks you for a loop, but it also sets you back in terms of responsibilities. Being sick forced me to miss work and to spend two days wandering the house struggling to compose a valid thought. I am (hopefully) at the tail end of it and am rediscovering the world days later. I suppose this is a good a time as any to reflect.

I woke up a few minutes ago with the idea to assess the world through new eyes as it were. The first thing I realized is that CNN found another asian tragedy to make money off of. This one comes in the form of a sinking ferry. The story is a bad one. Early reports suggest that the crew told everyone to stay where they were and then the Captain himself was among the first to abandon ship. Not illegal but morally reprehensible. It led me to thinking about these moral constants we have–Captain goes down with his ship and what not. I wonder where these ideas came from and why they become so pervasive on the international stage.

After I climbed down off my high horse I started thinking about news in general and how its moved from information to entertainment. I’ve ranted about this in the past, mostly to suggest that there are fewer places to get the real story anymore. It led me to thinking that maybe folks don’t want news anymore. News can be depressing. Short of sports and weather and information about what is happening very close to you, everything else is perceived as entertainment and is labeled with the expectations thereof.

Hmm… maybe I’m not off my high horse after all…

I’m not prepared to call Creationists wrong. I think I’ll go with ‘Short Sighted’

From the creation standpoint, God made everything. From the science standpoint, everything can be explained by science. What if both are correct? What if God’s delivery method of humanity is in fact the science of evolution. The primary reason that creationists cannot get behind evolution is because it contradicts with the bible. Well, in my humble opinion, it only contradicts with the bible if you look at the book as a factual record of history as opposed to a metaphorical text designed to teach each generation the religious and social rules of the day.

I can accept that there could be a God, a heaven, hell, and evolution. I don’t think these ideas are contradictory at all. We continue to evolve as a species even now. Science can help us explain some of the stories of the bible. Even the idea of the earth’s creation feels like a scientific fact that coincides with a metaphorical biblical story.

Not much more to say yet… Still sick.

CT Fletcher would say, ‘It is still your G.D. set!” Unfortunately, I’m sick as a dog and my set is really short tonight. It is rare that I feel this way–as if Malaria made out with Ebola and then decided to go looking for trouble and found me. Headache, fever, and several unmentionable other symptoms. I’m writing as much as I can, but unfortunately it aint all that much.

 

The sick bed (and toilet) beckons.

Wound up in a coffee shop today. As of late they’ve been foreign soil. The coffee shop vibe is one that is heavily romanticized by writers, myself included. Depending on where I land, a shop can be a soulful rest stop filled with interesting people or a noisy den crammed with high-strung individuals curious as to why I’m breathing their air. I don’t know when or how the ‘write in a coffee shop’ movement begin, but I signed up back at the turn of the century, spending ten years (and untold thousands) developing a fierce addiction to caffeine. Once parenthood set upon me I was forced to find alternatives to the coffee shop writing spot. I tried doing the home office thing (a journey often repeated and chronicled in this blog), but with people watching being such an important part of what I do, it was not successful.

 

A fundamental part of my writing process is having sufficient noise and distraction. The surroundings should force me to dive deeper into my process. Coffee shops can be perfect for that, but they can also be pits of commerciality—especially when it comes to Starbucks. In my dreams I’m working out of a cool local shop where the baristas know everyone by name and the conversations are genuine.

 

I didn’t find that shop, but I did find a good cup of iced coffee.

A buddy of mine turned me on to CT Fletcher. I guess he got tired of hearing my excuses about not working out and wanted to get me to listen to someone who gives straight talk. Message recieved. Fletcher talks about motivation and belief and getting off your ass and taking all the right steps to get to where you want to be. The key is to stop making excuses and stop taking short cuts.

Its funny, I always here that you have to fall in order to realize how far you need to go to get to the top. How do you know when you’ve fallen? Is it the people around you telling you? Is it that unfamiliar face/body in the mirror? The strange moments of tension or anger where there had been only happiness before? Or maybe it is as simple as realizing you don’t care as much about the things that used to mean so much. Maybe its when you start taking shortcuts because you care more about the result than the process.

Being happy is such a highlight in the American lifestyle. We are raised to be happy and to be successful, but are we raised to be the best we can be anymore? Are we taught to work hard and find love in the process of that work? Does being the best you matter anymore?

It still matters to me, even if I forget myself from time to time.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am more mentally present when I blog in the morning vs. blogging at night. It therefore stands to reason that the best time for me to write may be in the morning vs. late at night when the only thing of value I seem prepared to create is Minecraft tunnels.

Nobody has published a report expressing just how much international money has been spent on locating flight 370. Nielsen published a report about the number of people who watched the news on April 10th. Once again, FOX more than doubled the number of viewers that CNN had that night. The last time CNN broke the 1/2 as populous margin was when they first began airing the Flight 370 drama. I’m taking you back to the original ‘This is a CRISIS’ graphic, not the more recent, ‘We’ll find this thing if it kills us’ graphic. People were interested. Not all people, but the people that actually spend time watching cable news. What’s important to note about that is the people who generally watch cable news are the ones who are drawn to the kind of news that reinforces their world view, i.e. the Fox News set.

Back in November of 12, CNN awoke to a full blown crisis. Their numbers showed a 15-month low as they averaged 385, 000 total viewers in the Monday-Friday prime slot, only 95,000 of which were adults in the 25-54 demo. CNN must’ve realized that things were not working. Adults above 54 long supported FOX and showed no signs of wanting to change (as is indicative of the age group), so the real prize was and continues to be the 25-54 demographic… Or is it? The fundamental problem that CNN faces is a shifting landscape of news access. Younger people are going online to get their news and many older folks are following suit. Add to that the number of options available to get news that is, well, not like FOX and you are looking at a fight over a shrinking market with a sizable number of competitors. All of this brings us to flight 370.

When the flight first disappeared people of all demographics were keenly interested. They couldn’t get in depth coverage of the story from other outlets because other outlets truly didn’t realize the impact the story would have. It was a budding conspiracy theory–Amelia Earhart for the modern day. CNN ran the story like crazy, and because there wasn’t many other options to get the story from, the CNN ratings soared… For a moment.

Here’s the deal: Americans have developed an extremely short attention span. We are over the story. Some of us aren’t, but that major number bump disappeared, proving that the missing plane didn’t matter. It was merely another distraction; a Macguffin to keep our eyes glued to the TV until the next shiny object arrived. It wasn’t even a human interest piece. In truth, very little attention has been paid to people who (more than likely) died on the plane except for in conspiratorial tones. It wasn’t about that at all.

It was about ratings and now those ratings are gone, baby, gone.

Only CNN doesn’t seem to realize that yet.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. If you needed any more evidence that Florida is all fracked up, try this attack on for size. The best part is the kid in the Hollister shirt who says, “I’m really surprised. I didn’t think a bear would ever attack anybody.” Seriously, dude? To quote a friend,  “Are you new?”

It feels like fragility is a fundamental part of the human condition; as though once you gain the capacity to verbally express emotion you also gain the understanding that you have the power to shake the emotions of others. Emotions are tied up in everything we do. This is especially true of perception. We learn see people in one way, be it through repeated exposure or basic stereotyping. When a person doesn’t behave in a fashion that we’ve come to expect, we tend to instantly become defensive and afraid.

Are we not allowed to change our minds? Can’t we evolve? Inevitably it creates a singular presumption in the human mind:  You cannot tell people how you really feel. On the one hand honesty helps us understand how we come across to others. On the other hand, honesty hurts and is often misinterpreted as an attack. Suddenly the truth is a very bad thing. It is a losing bet whose outcome is destined to weaken your position. So you learn to avoid conversations. You embrace compromise and you settle for the cold silence of unspoken thoughts.

Maybe it isn’t that people don’t want to change but that people realize how hard changing is, so they work equally hard to hold on to the memory of what was, working backwards to capture a moment they can never catch–one that has already passed. Changing is hard work, and once you admit that others can do it you have to admit that you can do it yourself. Therefore it is far easier, at times, to spend your energy accepting that people change all the time and you too must change and grow as a result. Changing means leaving your comfort zone, but not changing means that comfort zone is built on an ever shifting foundation and it won’t belong before that foundation crumbles.

 

Today in Jamba Juice I saw a lady with amazing shoes. They were black heels with a strip of some sort of shiny metallic substance near the front. Neat. It got me to thinking about the clothes people wear and the oft inevitable question of, ‘where’d you get that?’ The question seems innocuous on the surface, but there is a deeper meaning at play there. ‘Where’d you get that?’ means where can I go to get that or something like it. Or, in other words, how can I jack your style? This line of thought sent me scurrying down the path of uniformity and led me right back to the question of originality in style. I got to wondering, are any of us trying to create a unique identity in the way we dress or is this all shifting miasma of comfort and conformity?

I spend a decent amount of time at the local skate part watching the talis’ boys three have fun. They don’t dress the part. Most of the other kids are rocking $34.00 Diamond Supply Co tees and Obey skinny pants without getting the point that they’re clothing makes them posers to the culture they claim to be. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe we are at the point where the clothing is the culture and entry is gained by buying the right gear and doing a flatground ollie. We see people who we feel are cool or look cool and we all too often decide, ‘I wanna look like that’ or ‘I wanna do that’ allowing our subconscious to seize upon the easy gratification of imitation.

There is a lot to be said for originality. The more I write the more I recognize that stories I most enjoy writing involve creating new things as opposed to finding an exciting angle on something I’ve already done before. Sure, at the heart of it there are only a handful (7, actually) stories any writer can ever tell, just like there are only so many options available with clothing. The key thing to remember is that within those options are a nearly unlimited number of things you can do with clothing (and stories) without being a nameless clone.

If Star Wars was supposed to teach us anything it was that clones don’t think for themselves…(and maybe that light sabers are deeply cool)

I’m willing to admit that this response may cause a lot of controversy.

If you haven’t heard about this case before, it all started with an 11 yr old boy who made a Facebook post claiming how gangsta he was. His family discovered the post and decided to make a post of their own. The boy was smacked in the face and spanked with a belt to the butt over 50 times, first by the mother and then  the grandmother. The child was required to hold on the the arms of a chair and not move while being spanked.

Before we get into the incident itself and the right vs. wrong debate, I need to point out how much i’m bothered by the portrayals of the incident. Michigan’s NBC affiliate said he was abused for ‘posting false information to his Facebook page’. Meanwhile CNN focused on the fact that this was a public shaming as the beating was posted to Facebook, and that there could’ve been alternative punishments such as taking away the boy’s Facebook page.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t know the entire story here. However, I did see enough of the video to hear and understand what the parents reasoning was. The parents claimed that the child was trying to act like a gangsta, starting down a road of violence and gang behaviors that is all too common for inner-city black kids. They wanted to teach him a lesson before the world had a chance to teach him that lesson. By that I believe they meant that they would give him a beating he would never forget, but not the kind he’d never survive–such as the kind of beating you’d get on the street. This reasoning was completely lost or even disregarded in the news reports I reviewed. In other words, the news refused to allow any sort of justification for the action, instead looking at the act itself and instantly labeling it unjustifiable. This is the problem with the media: We have a tendency in our media to remove context from a situation in an effort to make everything black and white or even to adjust the perception of situations to suit our particular audience or ratings needs. There is no question this kid was beaten severely, but there is also no news outlet that is willing to entertain a reason why. I get it. The savagery of the attack is what we are supposed to focus on. If you look at it in the dimension of relatable ‘objects’ or ‘ideas’ we are seeing a child being brutally spanked and even slapped by several adults–behaviors that we tell ourselves are never okay. In fact, several news outlets went on to say that spanking is never okay.

Guess what? Spanking is sometimes okay. If that means CPS is gonna bust down my door and take my kids away now then so be it. The fact remains that sometimes spanking is the proper course of action for disciplining my child. Note: I didn’t say your child because the relationship between you and yours is as foreign to me as gefilte fish in a jar on ice. I’m with my kids constantly and know their needs and their limitations. I know what buttons to push when I need to leave a lasting message. Would I do what that family did to that kid? Not at all. While I understand the need for a good spanking, the length and scope of it went beyond what I would call acceptable, but once again, I don’t know their situation. I don’t know what passes for a spanking in that neighborhood. My mother once beat me with a brush until it broke and then got upset because I broke her brush. I know many kids who had to go out back and pick out the stick momma would beat them with. All of these stories are part of the Afro-American cultural lore and, in a very fundamental way, exist as a result of the slave culture (a conversation for another time).

I’m not prepared to say that what that family did was right. I will say it was stupid. Posting it sent exactly the message they wanted to send, but also likely punked the kid in such a way that he’ll be forced into violence in order to regain any semblance of a reputation. I am also not going to say that spanking is wrong. It is a part of multiple cultures, no matter how much it is being pushed out of the mainstream media (and in some senses White-American) culture that immediately criminalizes all acts of spanking without heed of context.