I've been writing a lot for my film blog if you've been wondering where I went.

Life is well, all is well. Summer is here and I'm struggling to find a yob. Interview in seven hours at coffee bean. Wish me luck.

Click here to go to said "Film Blog"

Faith

Where do I stand on my faith in Christ?

I have no fucking clue about it anymore. At this point in my life, I've become so turned away from the whole idea of organized religion that I cannot say what I believe anymore.

Except that there is a god. And I pray to him some nights in the quiet.

And I'm willing to believe that if God is that loving then there is no correct path, no right way, no straight and narrow. Just a faith that, yea, there's something beyond on the chaos.

Worship is simple physics: when there are harmonious tones surrounding you, and you are singing, then you feel peace. It's the same concept as when you sing along to a song. Harmony rides with peace. But religions have been able to capitalize on worship and mantras for far too long.

I feel too much like I would be led down a corridor for the prospect of a great tasting wine (Amontillado) only to get buried alive.

But the wrench in the cog of this whole faith-based crisis is my innate fear of hell.

Just a Great Fucking Day.

I'm 2\5ths done with my finals. And, suddenly, they seem manageable.

My Behavioral Bio final was easy as pie for the most part, and I got most of the extra credit questions right so I'm pretty much set on a solid grade in that class.

My World Religions final was a joke. Hell, the class itself was a fucking joke. I'm glad it's over. I'll probably escape with a C. Whatever, I'm done studying religion.

But the best parts of the day were as such: Finding half a pack of cigarettes in the room where I had my first final... Just sitting on the table... Awesome.

Finding Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut. Awesome.

Finding a lid for my Brita filter while rummaging through the shit people are donating. Awesome.

Today has been good. Tomorrow should be easy except for the bits of studying I still have to do for Hinduism and Geology. But tomorrow is just Journalism so it'll be an easy day in the way of finals.

Peace and Love.

And I got to Paris....

I skipped geology to take a nap today--it turned out the class was cancelled. Either way, the dream I had was epiphanic and completely worth the nap.

From what I remember, I had spent three months at something called a quarterly polytechnic school or something, and I had become severely depressed, slipping into dreams that I couldn't awake from--dreams where the point was to find something that wasn't actually there. And I kept not being able to wake up. Instead, I just talked to people in the real world, but I was caught in this dream... The whole liminal aspect was something that wasn't even part of the epiphany, but it was still interesting. I called my parents up because I wanted nothing more than to kill myself. The only thing that kept me going was a girl who I only saw every once in awhile. It wasn't Kelley but I'm damn sure it represented her.

And when I finally woke up into my dorm room, I looked at the time to see why my alarm didn't go off--I thought that I had just slept for three months. And the time was correct, right on time: 3:09, but the date said February 11th. I couldn't figure out what had happened, so I checked my computer and the date was the same: Feb. 11th. 2\11\08 and I started to freak out that I have to relive this entire semester again.

And then I finally, actually, completely woke up to May 6th. And that's when it hit me. The last part of the dream where I was stuck in February. The smallest part but the biggest impact.

From it, I realized that, although this semester has had its ups and downs and lefts and rights, I wouldn't change a goddam thing. I wouldn't change any of it because of who I've become of it, who the people around me have become of it. To change it would be to change the changes that have occurred. And all the changes from the ups and [beat]downs have been great changes--in myself and others. And I wouldn't change it for anything.

I am content for once. I can finally say I'm okay with a lot of things I'm usually not okay with.

Well there goes my tomorrow.

five am. wide fuckin' awake. Awesome not possum. Maybe I can sleep. My mind races refuses to stop.

Things I wonder about not worth wondering about. That's usually how it is. Turn out the light, turn off the music. Lay there.

But then it starts again and I am back again and I am bored again and I cannot find you.

Forget the papers, forget your musical dreams.

I think I'm growing again. I'm suffering from the same fatigue that happened the last time. A fatigue that nothing but sleep can help. I wake up with random parts of my body hurting--yesterday my shoulders, two days ago my biceps, my legs, elbows. On back it goes. And it's hitting me at the very wrong time. Right now I feel like I could crawl in bed and sleep for three plus hours even though I just slept for seven and had a solid cup of black coffee. When I wake up, I am still in some deep area of sleep, where my brain is repairing and my body is working. So deep that it is hard to move when I do have to wake up. So deep that my day begins in anger at myself for going through this again. I was beginning to be content with being five foot eight and now I'm going through the growing thing again right before finals.

My hands feel bigger, too. My body aches and I am not sick. I don't like this. I wouldn't mind if it had occurred during the summer, when I can sleep for longer and not have to worry about missing much.

Though, speaking of summer, I have applied for as many internships at Movie Houses that I could find. MGM, Fox, Sony, RSA Productions. So we'll see if any of them respond. That would be a cool thing to do this summer. Much more acute to what I plan on doing than working at a Target or a Borders.

My phone has been on the fritz ever since I got back from Spring Break. Not sending text messages, not receiving them. And, today, it's beginning to overheat unless I plug it in. the battery's completely shot to hell, I hate technology. It'd probably help if I weren't dropping it all the damn time, but what can you do--I've got butter fingers (on the note of butter, when I was little, I used to actually lick the stick in the fridge when no one was looking. Sorry family.).

On another note, I've been struck with this great idea for a movie. I've begun outlining it but I won't state it here because of my paranoia. You know how it is. Tentatively called the Coma, though that's a bit non-subtle.

I had an interesting dream last night about watching this movie where this guy was caught in a pyramid scheme, trying to sell another guy chocolate. And then, later, you see him with bad acne, and I turned to Kelley and said, "He's just been eating the chocolate!" My dreams have become more vivid and paranoid as of late. It worries me because that means that there's something churning inside me that I'm scared of. I know this because last time dreams like the current ones happened, I was getting ready to come up to Humboldt. But, now, I don't know why they're happening. There's something going on and I don't know what it is. Maybe finals coming up, maybe the research paper or the other paper I've already finished. Who knows. I'll figure it out and get back to you.

The winter's overr

So.

School is well, classes are well. I have a geology midterm tomorrow that I've been studying for all week so I'm none too worried about it. Paper due soon in World Religions, big fat greek research paper due in Hinduism at the end of the Semester which is sooner than you'd think.

Movies watched recently: The Boondock Saints, Platoon, the Darjeeling Limited, Groundhog Day, Back to the Future part I, Part II, Part III, Where the Buffalo Roam, Raging Bull. Follow the links to my reviews of said films...

I'm not too worried about much right now, everything is coasting along real well.

Yesterday fever, tomorrow Saint Peter

I find it interesting that, with each step we take, we leave a little piece of the sole of our shoes. That is why the tread wears down, we've left little pieces behind with every step and our soles can only take so many steps before they need to be renewed. Boy, no wonder sole and soul are homonyms. We step on both, we leave pieces of each behind in all places--those English-makin' folks knew what they were doing in this case.

Knew and new I haven't figured out yet. Or why there's two to and too. Or there their and they're. But the latter's connections are within context--and contexually fixed words aren't generally very meaningful by themselves. They're filler for their own devices over there in their little world they've created. But and butt is another one--one t means you've got something else to say and sometimes its bad. Butt means ass-end of something. Probably from buttock.

English is one fucked up language.

Filmic Pulp

So, yea, I deleted my Dodgers blog and started a movie review blog called Filmic Pulp. That's a funny word, filmic. It's a synonym for cinematic. But more terse and just kind of weird.

Check it out. If you're a frequenter of this site then there's nothing new there since I just culled all my reviews from here and put them there, but there will be new ones in the future! And they will all go there... And lord knows what'll wind up here.

I love you all. And I've decided, officially, to take a hiatus from the Religious Studies program to see what the Film Minor program is like. So I'll be taking Film Making I next semester. W00!

Peace and love.

Magnolia\ Ghost Dog

Magnolia
After I saw There will be Blood, I knew I had to see another Paul Thomas Anderson film. Blood was so beautiful and so rich that it seemed like Anderson had the potential to have other movies as great and effecting as that.

So my first venture into his older films was his 2000 film Magnolia, a three-hour film about the semi-intersecting lives of six people in the San Fernando Valley.

Usually, I don't enjoy films about semi-intersecting lives. To name a few, I did not like Crash, Babel, or Amores Perros. These were films that tried desperately to get you to see that all our lives are connected. To see that our actions effect the lives of others. We get it.

But the beauty of Magnolia is that this film only uses those coincidental intersections for cohesion, not to show that our actions effect others, not to show that all our actions mean something. Instead, this movie is a character study about these people who are slowly descending into loneliness and madness. And, because of these intersections, the movie becomes a movie instead of six vignettes--instead of something along the lines of Coffee and Cigarettes. And the cohesion sinks deeper than accidents, it is a chain and a link that is evident through the characters' pain and their personalities. Their stubbornness to reveal the past (for example, we only find out about the past of John C. Reilly's cop character in the last third of the film), their desperation, their sadness. Each character has their own poignant scene that shows just what they are feeling. And what they are feeling is what the other five people are feeling. And maybe, just maybe, it's what someone in the audience has felt. That's how you make a connection--through emotion since we are all the same at the bottom of everything.

Magnolia hosts an all-star cast featuring the likes of William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, Alfred Molina, John C. Reilly (Surprisingly, only once I thought, "Dewey Cox is a cop?!"), and many others. No matter how much I hate his acting abilities, Tom Cruise's character was one that was so well-written to the person that it is scary.

Cruise's character is a sexual-motivational speaker under the mantra of "Respect the cock and tame the cunt." He's a hardass who's showing you how to get any woman you want. His character is a heartless, soulless, bastard... For awhile. See, that's where it starts to break down. During an interview scene, the character begins to crack and suddenly Cruise's acting abilities come into question. He is an actor who simply cannot show sadness. Blame it on L. Ron Hubbard, whatever. He's one who can do pensive, angry, and other emotions that one would associate with the color red. However, when he gets into the blue emotions--sadness, depression et al--Cruise begins to crack and his on-screen presence begins to pull you out of the film.

Luckily, he's only one-sixth of this film. And one-sixth of three hours is only 30 minutes. And he's only blue for about fifteen of them. So for the other 165 minutes, you've got other actors who can do blue and red swimmingly. And you've got a director who knows how to cull the best from most actors. You can tell that these people are genuinely sad and genuinely guilty and genuinely unfit for life.

But the problem with a film of this scope and length is that there's only so much sadness that a person can take before the apathy and the boredom sets in. And that's usually around the 90-minute mark. So what Anderson has done rather brilliantly, is to offset some of the sadder moments with music in the background--like a scene where William H. Macy is in a bar, drinking himself silly and bearing his soul to those who will listen. It's an effecting scene, but one that is overlaid by what is pouring from the jukebox which is typical barroom fare. By doing so, the watcher is allowed a bit of a rest from all the Kafka-esque deprivation and the spiraling towards hell that this film deals with.

There is so much more I could write about Magnolia, but it's so layered and so thick that to explain it would be like giving someone the bottom layer of a wedding cake without the wedding and without the rest of the cake. You have to see this film to truly appreciate its beauty and depth.


--

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

When I first heard of this movie as a senior, I was intrigued. But I never saw it. Why? Because I'm a lazy cunt when it comes to seeing films sometimes. And I also get obsessed with seeing only one director's films.

But I finally saw it. Forest Whitaker playing a black samurai mafia hitman with a score done by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. It sounds like a pitch for the latest Chris Tucker film, but this is a film that, much like Jim Jarmusch likes to do, allows for lingering shots of the emotion in one's face and the oft boredom of life.

Throughout the movie, we follow his character and are intersected with him reading sections from the Samurai for Dummies book Hagakure. What starts as a mafia film quickly becomes a revenge film. The mafia's out to get Ghost Dog but they sure as shit ain't gonna get him. They don't know where he lives because they've never followed the pigeons that he uses as his only contact with them. They don't know his real name. They don't know what he looks like except that he's black.

So they start killing every black guy on a roof wrangling pigeons, which is apparently only one. And I think it was the dad from "Family Matters".

Anyway, Ghost Dog realizes that he suddenly has to protect his master, his retainer, Louie, who they are going to kill because Ghost Dog was his guy and Ghost Dog fucked up.

And by protecting him, I mean taking out the entire goddam mob in "The Industrial State."

And that's definitely something I noted while watching one scene where license plates are changed: the states. In the film, there are two of them: "The Industrial State," and the "Highway State." So we're set in an alternate reality which allows us to dismiss the police for the most part--which is good because otherwise I'd be wondering why they weren't doing dick to stop these guys.

So that's one difference from a typical, cliche, mafia film. I made a list of some others:

• Aside from narrations, we don't hear Ghost Dog speak directly to anyone until 35 minutes into the movie. He talks to a little girl in the park who he later gives the Hagakure to (which, along with one other character, definitely allowed for Ghost Dog 2).
• All the Japanese references. Rashomon parallels and the like.
  
• The fact that Ghost Dog is a fucking samurai. How awesome is that.

Also, what's interesting is that the readings from the Hagakure first only reflect the actions of the mafia. That is, loyalty to their master and such. Because of the somehow botched hit, and the way that the hit was filmed, we are led to believe that he fucked up and disobeyed his master. But then we realize that these readings reflect both Ghost Dog and the mafia in either parallels or in interchanging pieces. Some only symbolize the mafia. And some only represent Ghost Dog. It's pretty cool.

Jim Jarmusch did an excellent job with this film. The way that it was edited and shot allowed for the room of emotions. It's not taut and ready to burst at the seems with what wants to go on. It allows for the movie to act for itself and to think for itself. And that's the sign of a good director: an autonomous film like this one.

Pocket Map to Heaven

I had a revelation in Vietnam last night.

While I was watching Apocalypse Now (easily one of my new favorite films), I realized that I really do want to try out the film minor. So my RS major will be on a hiatus for a semester while I see what I like or don't like about it.

And if I realize that I miss the religious studies program, then I can always go back. It's just an experiment. And I'll be taking on more Journalism classes so that I can even things out if I choose to go back to the RS major.

It's been something I've mulled over for a little while. I talked to my mom about it. And it finally hit me that it's something I want to try. I want to see what it's like to be introduced to how to create a movie. I want to know what to do and all that jazz.

It just seems rather strange to me that I come up here for the Religion program and I immediately abandon it. It almost seems wrong. But not to my soul at the moment. I want to find out, I want to know, I want to be certain that Religious Studies is what I want. And maybe it's not. Maybe this filmmaking class is something I really enjoy.

Life is well. I found a room mate and I will be moving off campus next semester. Wahoo! Things are looking up and my previous depression was a direct result of me wanting everything in a now-fashion--the fashion of my generation. But patience is key in life and baseball, so that's what's happened. Patience. Peace. Serenity.

This ship is taking me.

One of those nights.

I was ready for bed by 1130, wanting to sleep.

Turned out the lights, got into bed, and my mind was off to the races.

About what, you ask? The list: next semester, registering, wondering how my first semester up here will turn out knowing that my first quarters\semesters anywhere usually turn into shit because I'm trying adjust and find my place foremost and I can't help it when academics fall to the wayside but I have six weeks left in the quarter and the paper I'm most worried about will get some consulting tomorrow when I see the professor and what am I gonna do about my religious studies major? Do I still want it? Should I take Intro to Christianity or the Hebrew Bible next semester just to give it one last chance? I'm excited about the Cinematography course, but I'm also leery of the 6 hour filming sessions... Do I want to take photojournalism or do I want to take magazine writing? What the fuck is a Freshman Interest Group and why is it a prerequisite for one of the classes I need? Will there be a seat for me in either of the biology classes? If not, then what about botany? If not then how the hell am I going to fulfill that GE? Why is college always so hard for me? Even harder than sleep? What if I take radio production, have a radio show, what would be the first song I play? The pain in my throat that last timed manifested on my tongue is back but on my gum and it almost feels like a tooth is growing in for some reason. I'm not worried much this time around. I'm more concerned with my overall health. I eat too much junk food. I worry too much about acting suave and cool and trying to impress others when the shit should just come naturally and fuck the rest who don't enjoy my company. I think I'm a homophobe, in part, at heart. Maybe in the same way I'm afraid of Mormons--that they'll try and convert me and am I strong enough to say no? All of this adds and adds and adds and builds and builds and builds so I come clamoring onto the internet to read about the classes and email the teachers and try to go back to reading about Islam for my World Religions class. Paper due on the 25th. Housing lottery on this friday at 9AM. Wake up, stammer and stamp. Say I want a single because I feel bad for having a room mate when I'm awake at three AM hammering keys like some crazed man who meanders out of the building for a cigarette only to look over through the windows of the dining commons to see ghosts moving around, eating, talking. Then to see small cars down below moving around and returning from some night I'll never know about. Never know about it like this post won't know paragraph breaks.

I'm sorry for everything I've ever done and will do. It always feels like my fault. That I'm the one who started hocking shit around only to have it come back and bite me in the ass. I feel sick in the head, I need to see a therapist but I can never feel comfortable with them. I wish I could. And they rape your paychecks by saying to come back every week for twenty years. Even though I guess it's more effective than medication though most Psychiatrists only do med checks anymore. I miss my family. I miss my own room. My headphones cracked and I need a new pair. Probably from sleeping on the one ear bud. I don't know. Ever since I got up here, those headphones have been deteriorating.

And then there's the applicable question of why am I still a virgin? Would it solve some of these problems? Should I heed the advice of some of the younger guys around me and lose it to some drunk girl? Or should I wait it out for the perfect one? I don't know anymore, it's so frustrating when everyone else joneses for it and you have no idea how to relate in this jones fest. Maybe I'm just atavistic, anachronistic--from a different time, plopped into the 21st century on accident for a purpose.

And what if I die tomorrow knowing not the highest form of passion between genders? Knowing only the soul's highest passion of faith.

I feel like I've wasted my life on precepts and I shouldn't have tried so hard for some things that never panned out. The apologies will falter the marksman's shot and the guillotine will miss by only inches, but you will still be alive and forgiven and placed among the holiest crowned and robed in purple.

--

And what, suddenly, was supposed to be a release, has only sparked more and more and more questions within my restless mind. I can't shut down. I hate this.

Crack your skull open. Re-form. Remiss. Caught in a stalemate, knowing you can't win no matter the stalwart. Keep breathing keep thinking keep knowing. Come to pass. Known unknown. Cramped up and wrinkled and broken and sincere and vile and complacent and pragmatic and knowing knowing knowing that something will come someday keeping the boulder from flailing you to the ground. Dichotomous mind wanting to stay afloat yet wanting to sink. Boulder versus mind. Heart weighing ten thousand pounds. Mind knowing yet no buoyancy can save thee.

Shit.

s
i
n
k
i
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g
,,,

i will know.

There's a snake in my boot.

Can't sleep. Four midterms, one quiz, and a spot on my tongue that may be from all this goddam coughing or from smoking (probably the latter.) has gotten me really stressed out. To the point that I can only really sleep during the day when the night of unrest has really caught up with me. And the I end up having crazy-ass dreams about getting high and falling asleep and having a dream that my hands and feet are missing only to wake up into the first dream to find out I'm at some sort of resort, sleeping in a fancy hotel where the doors don't completely lock and the elevator goes sideways and my mom has spread a bunch of small church pencils all over one of the rooms for some reason.

And then I met Flavor Flav. And somewhere in there I started talking in my sleep and having a mid-dream that I was in my dorm, stumbling around looking for my journal so I could write all these other dreams down. Or maybe that wasn't a dream but sleep-searching or something.... All I know is that I can't sleep right now and I'm almost afraid to if I'm going to run into Flavor Flav again.

Over on Dodger Blues they posted a link to the mySpace of Eliot Spitzer's hooker. You can tell she's not a cheap one because she doesn't have platinum blonde hair and tweaked-out teeth.

I finished reading the Plague before I fell asleep. It was good but you could tell there were times that Camus was simply using his characters to spout off his personal existentialistic views. Though the idea of a plague happening is rather interesting and scary as shit.

I saw the Savages the other night. I don't know if I liked it or just thought it was kind of okay. My main problem was with the ending because it's setup as this movie that's solely about two siblings taking care of their father as he slowly fades into nothingness with dementia. Nowhere is there a tonal shift to suggest that the movie's central focus was actually the two siblings and their problems. Instead, I thought it was about the father and their relationship and coping with it, etcetera. However, when the father dies, and they say to each other, "So this is it..." the movie doesn't end. It seemed like the ending, it felt like the ending, it should have probably been the ending. Especially since, directly afterwards they go into some montaged shots of the city of Buffalo (i think) which would have made the movie have perfect bookends since it started with interesting, almost Lynch-esque shots of Sun City, Arizona. Instead, though, the movie carries on to show the ambiguous, partial successes and codas of the siblings. Everything after the montage of Buffalo seemed superfluous given that the movie wasn't about the siblings but about how fucked up their lives were because of their father.

I think it's time for bed, finally.

Fish hands running from rain

I realize now why I hung out with girls. I'm effeminate and I care about emotions. I care about reality.

I don't think I was made for this reality. Probably a different one. I'm just so unhappy and far too often it stems from interacting with other people. People who aren't in my family or my other family (Kelley, JP, Jasmine, Brad, Rachael and Ashley by default) who don't know me, don't understand me.

People who, once I've "eased in the weird," still don't get me. The final straw was tonight because usually, one of the litmus tests is playing this really nasty\funny song by Dirty Sanchez called "Dig it." And they didn't think it as funny and called me a homo and I'm completely done because of it. They failed my litmus test. And every time I try and mention something, well, meaningful, it gets shot down in a series of "Dudes" and "dicks" and "dawgs." Goes down in fucking flames.

But I know that, at the end of the day, I enjoy my existence much more than they probably enjoy theirs--caught in the loop of classes and drugs and parties on weekends. Constantly caught in a loop of a single climax per week on the ends. Why can't they have the same type of fun without the parties or the booze or the drugs? I ask myself that. I don't understand how anyone could do drugs when there's so much to figure out in this world already without altering it. I know that if I ever did Acid, LSD or shrooms, my head would explode.

Maybe I'm just being a paranoid android, I dunno. What I do know is that I can't take it much longer.

I do know that I feel caught in a crisis because I know I have to stick this out since I'm getting the education I desire. I just wish the good experience in the classroom would extend outwards.

It'll come. These things take time. Be rational. "Don't get butt-hurt."

All I know is all I know and sometimes it's not enough.

That's been said by someone but now by me and I'm pretty sure I'm still the first to say it. I like to make my own pithy statements and then use them under titles like "Cassavettes" or "The Purple Calligrapher" or "Unknown," because I don't want to tout my own statements even though I really am.

Whatever. School is well, life is well. I'm figuring out where I want to live next year. I really don't want to deal with meeting and dealing with another new room mate. I know Mario, my current room mate, plans on moving off-campus and that's fine by me. I don't want to move off-campus because I moved up here to live on campus. Plus, when I'm 21, I can drink in the dorms if I so choose so there's really no need to move off campus lest I feel like driving to school again--which I don't.

You should listen to Beirut. Bradley recommended them to me a little while back and they're already in my top 10 on last.fm.

I don't have much to comment on. I don't have a TV so I haven't been watching anything though it's frustrating because I know there's TVs around and I have access to none of them. I haven't seen any movies lately because I've been in the poor house.

OH! That's what I could talk about: Eyes Wide Shut. I finally got around to watching the movie last night because I've been slowly getting through the Kubrick catalog even though he's not one of my favorites but he has his merit and his ways.

And any film maker who is as meticulous and perfectionist as he is deserves to be watched. And Eyes Wide Shut took 400 days to shoot. That's not even including post-production and everything else. I can now understand why he didn't pump out movies like Woody Allen. He was too engulfed and swallowed up by details to do that.

And Eyes Wide Shut is no exception. It's very intense and silly in the ways that Kubrick is known for. It's like he knew this would be his last film, so he went hog wild with it. He created New York in London because he hates traveling and he probably chose the names of all the shops on the sets and all the signs in the windows of those shops and the street names and everything.

But I wanted to talk about the censorship of the movie. I viewed the censored version that was created for the MPAA that has, in the scenes at the orgy that Tom Cruise's character goes to, people digitally placed in front of the more graphic simulated acts. You can tell that they were placed after the final cut and everything because they're still and poorly done and they do not fit with the flow of everything else. It's as if they did it intentionally to make you realize that there's something going on and these goddam people shouldn't be here to ruin it. Like Tom Cruise's character. These digitally added people are the ones who showed up in taxis in a rented tuxedo.

And that's why I hate the ratings system. At times you begin to stop seeing the director's vision of the writer's script and you start seeing what the censor's idea of the scene should be. Are children going to be seeing this movie if it's rated R? Hell no. Adults are. It's a fucking Stanley Kubrick film. Nicole Kidman is half-naked in the one-sheet. Parents will know. So why do they censor R-rated films? Why is there even NC-17 but to send films into a nameless oblivion?

It's fucking stupid. Plain and simple. Most people have already lost their virginity by age 17 so what's a little bit of simulated sex going to hurt their integrity? It's frustrating. I can barely even put into words the sort of frustration and madness that the MPAA brings into my mind. It is a broken system and it needs to be rebuilt. That's about it. Everything else is a red haze right now. I'm gonna go take an elephant tranquilizer or two to calm me down now.

Everywhere I go.

Sick again. I went and saw the health clinic on campus yesterday, turns out I've got the flu. Whoopee! So they gave me some double strength Aleve or something and I've been taking that. Shivering and waking up with everything all damp from sweat and everything.

Otherwise, things have been going pretty well, I'd say. Went home last weekend, staying here this weekend, obviously.

Classes have continued to be interesting. I'm working on an essay comparing Christ and Krishna in their respective religions and hows Hindus and Christians view incarnation and the avatar (not the little picture on forums, silly). Should be fun, though I should probably start reading up on Krishna soon since the prospectus is due the thursday before spring break.

Anywho, I'm gonna crawl back into bed and sleep the day away, hoping to feel better.

Filipino Box Spring Hog

It's baseball season and, as with my previous hobby (roller coasters), I've started a sort of website in tandem with this one. Except it's just a blog. I don't want to deal with design and all that crap. It's here. Insofar, I don't have much to say, but once the season starts, it should get more interesting as I'll try and comment on every game.

Anywho, let's talk Oscars. On the bus ride home, Kelley was sending me results since I couldn't view the actual program. I'm glad that the Coen brothers finally won Best Director(s). It's an award they've deserved for almost every movie they've done (except the Ladykillers. What was that shit?!)

In the Best Supporting Actor category, I thought Paul Dano was nominated for his role as Eli Sunday in There Will be Blood. But he wasn't. And that was probably a good thing because it was already a hard enough category between Casey Affleck (one of my new favorite actors after Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Javier Bardem. Both did a great job--I was rooting for Affleck more so than Bardem simply because of the last 45 minutes of TAOJJBTCRF truly break your heart. Affleck thought he'd be received as a celebrity. But instead it's the opposite. He's treated like scum because he killed a national star.

In Supporting Actress, I'm sad that Blanchett lost. She was an awesome Bob Dylan. And I love me some Bob Dylan (well, before his 80's phase. Reaganomics even turned the music into shit!).

The Best Score award was skewed because of Greenwood using, say, thirty seconds from his previous composition (Popcorn Superhet Receiver. It's actually pretty cool) in his score for There Will Be Blood. And that definitely was one of the best musical compositions for film I've heard in awhile.

But, as in previous years, at least one of my favorite films had to be completely ignored. Last year, it was The Fountain and Inland Empire. This year, it was the Darjeeling Limited.

And that's okay because the Academy doesn't make your opinions. You do.

Let's be reasonable.

I've been sick with some kind of sniffle or cough or chill since the week after I got up to HSU.

And also homesickness. It comes and goes, I try to forget about it--but that's what happens when you have great parents, I suppose. You miss them. It's sensible.

And you miss your dogs and your lawn and your privacy.

But it should pass as long as I bury myself in my studies. I have trouble meeting people, that goes without saying. So it'll come. Come to pass. Boredom will happen always. But whatever. I'm okay, I guess. I just miss everything. And I can't go to any other school because the RS program here is top notch.

Anyway, Spring Training has started, that's obvious by the last post, so there's something to take my mind off of everything else going on or not going on.

Casimir Pulaski Day Already?

It's been ten days. You deserve something new.

This past weekend, I got the chance to experience Universal Sufism--one of the reasons I actually came to this school. Part of their Religious Studies program revolves around experiencing religions instead of learning about them.

And I can understand why there's an experiential weekend on Sufism, but not a standard class. A lot of what the Universal Sufists believe cannot be learned from a book but instead experienced. And their pretty light or easy on theological discussions. They believe that all religions are facets of the One Divine being. Their founder, Hazrat Inayat Khan, brought this to the States around the 20th century and proceeded to spread it with the help of Samuel Lewis.

As the weekend went on, I realized that this is the exact thing that I had purported at one time--that God reveals himself in various ways to different people. However, when it became actualized, I realized how it feels like a cult. They say that they don't have a Christ or a Muhammad figure in their religion, but it seems like, in time, Inayat Khan will fill that role. He came up with the Ten Sufi Thoughts and he is the one whose teachings they look to the most.

History has an odd way of morphing things, as does time. And those two things seem to be ready to morph this into an all-encompassing theological clusterfuck like most other religions are today.
And the other odd thing of the weekend was that it solidified my belief in Christ without solidifying my belief in the Christian church. I knew that, deep down, Christ was my savior. And I also realized, during an invocation for the Spirit of Guidance, that I still want to be a Youth Pastor, come doubt or high water.

Overall, it was interesting, but it was definitely something I could never truly get into. Next Semester, I plan on doing the Buddhist experiential weekend. Exciting? Oui.

--

Spring Training for the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles (Fuck you, Anaheim) has officially gotten under way. Most of the team has reported even though the report date for position players isn't until later this week.

Juan Pierre is there and, no matter how much I love watching the guy get extra bases run on him, I hope he gets traded. Andre Ethier and his talent are just begging for a full-time slot. It wouldn't seem to be wise having him platoon with Matt Kemp since both can hit Left and Right Handed pitching. However, it'd be even more unwise and strange to have him platoon with Pierre since both are left handed batters with completely different games. Pierre gets 200 hits, sure, but he also has 668 plate appearances. As a result, his OBP was a meager .331 while his AVG was a decent .293. Maybe it would do him some good to sit down if he can rake in 200 hits again while minimizing plate appearances. And maybe draw a walk once in awhile.

Look, Juan, you aren't a good leadoff guy if you can't hold your bat back. I understand that your arms are as weak as they look, but, please, hold up your bat. Have some sense. Lean into some pitches for Christ's sake. That won us a game once last year. Lean in and steal. Try that strategy. You won't have to tire your arms with the bat anymore.

If you're gonna play every day, Juan, draw some walks so that we don't have to bitch about your OBP. If you aren't going to play everyday, still hit as much as you would. That'd make you hot shit in most books. Get an injury to pad your numbers against mass. That type of thing. I know you've got that streak going, but you also said in an interview that you don't mind if it ends. So let it end.

Or, hell, maybe lift some weights. And don't be a dick in Ethier takes your job. Because he's better. And you probably know that.


In other news around camp, Sandy Koufax showed up to do some shadow coaching. He lives in Vero Beach, so I can guarantee you that this hermit will probably not be flying to the new facility in Arizona any time soon. As a result, it kind of sucks that top prospect Clayton Kershaw wasn't invited to the Major League camp this year. He's a lefty could probably have learned one or two things from him about the pressures of being a hot-to-trot prospect. And also that he doesn't need any time in the minor leagues. Koufax didn't play a single game in the minors, and, as a result, was once voted as the most over rated left-handed pitcher of all time. He spent 11 years in the majors, and the first six were plagued with rookie mistakes. But there was a dumb rule that if you sign for x-amount of dollars, then you have to start on the major league team.

Either way, the type of talk that surrounds Kershaw makes it sound like he and Billingsley will be the new Koufax-Drysdale. Except Billingsley isn't the second most intimidating pitcher of all time--he just has large thighs. And I guess they can be scary, but not as much as a little bit of chin music. That's alright, though, because that's not how the game is played any more even though fans love a fight. That's the funny thing about the strict rules concerning ejections and fighting and so forth. When the dugouts clear, the crowd gets excited and your team gets press on ESPN. It may even help if we had another Ryan v. Ventura fight (great shit, by the way) every week.

Think about it: fans watch NASCAR to see crashes (and drink), people watch the NHL for blood on the ice, people watch football for the contact. Baseball has zero contact and no one likes watching the World Series. Maybe they would if it were prefaced by a title fight? Or if they knew that the teams actually hated each other.

Okay, so this post has become super tangential and it only gets worse because we are now going to talk about free agency. Free Agency has ruined rivalries because it allows for players to go to where the money is, whether or not they first played for Boston and the money's in New York. You would never experience a person retiring because they were traded to the Giants like Jackie Robinson did because they'd probably give him a contract extension would 55 million dollars. You'd never see another Marichal v. Roseboro fight because the teams don't hate each other anymore. Only the fans do. Hell, Jeff Kent signed with the Dodgers. Mark Sweeney was traded to us from the Giants. Jason Schmidt, the Dodger Killer. The list goes on. They go where there's money and necessity. Not where their heart tells them too.

Free Agency turned a game into a sport into pure entertainment. Which is fine by me, I guess.

That's enough for tonight, this should compensate for the ten day drought... if you love baseball.

Bratislava

Life is good.

I've been reading about Taoism and eastern mysticism, and so I've tried to meditate in the context of Christianity. It's been interesting, but hard to describe. And Zen Buddhists say that if I describe it, then I've missed the point entirely so... I'll let you wonder about it. Maybe meditate instead?

I was reading Bertrand Russell's essay, "Why I am not a Christian," and it got me thinking about where most Christian philosophies that try and justify God fail. They all want to prove that God is omniscient and omnipotent and a good God all around. But this is what I came up with, in response to that idea:

If God is not human, then terms describing humans are not applicable to his being. As a result, we can clearly state that God is not omniscient, omnipotent, nor good. On the contrary, he is also not non-omniscient, non-omnipotent, nor bad. God simply is.

So the atheists can have their arguments about God not being good or omniscient. They can shove them up their ass for all I care. God can't be expressed via adjectives. God cannot be expressed in words. As the Sufists say, it's something you have to taste. For example, we sit here and discuss at great length how delicious cookies are. Their texture, their contents, how fattening they can be and how sick they can make you if you eat too many. We can talk about their taste and their composition, learn from texts of their greatness. But you can never fully know what a cookie is unless you taste it.

The same can be said for God, except that he never makes you sick and he never runs out, never makes you fat or makes you feel fat. You cannot express the Father in words, he must be tasted.

There's my challenge, atheists. Throw down.

Best Movie of the Year?!

That's tough. I have three favorites, two I've already written about and the third one isn't quite a comedy so I couldn't toss it in that category.

My top three movies of this year, in a tie for first place are:

The Darjeeling Limited
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

These three movies together show why I love some movies more than others. They all have themes and visual metaphors and some beautiful cinematography. The way that India was filmed and talked about in Darjeeling was beautiful. The way that the brothers never changed clothes yet had all of their fathers' luggage was beautiful. Some critics said that it was Wes Anderson doing a parody of Wes Anderson. But I say they can go fuck themselves. This was probably his best film, edging out the Royal Tenenbaums. He's definitely one of my favorite film makers and this, so far, was his pinnacle. He was able to capture everything about being a family so perfectly. And the way that they were able to finally let go their grief about their father's death was awesome. They realized that they couldn't get on the train, continue on their journey, with all the (literal) baggage of their father. So they just threw it off them and watched it fade from view.

And I liked that the three of them had their things that they could hide behind. Francis had his bandages and the most visible damage, Jack had his moustache and his words and Peter had his Father's sunglasses that, even though they were the wrong prescription, he never took them off.

2007 was a great year in cinema. I hope 2008 is just as good, though I'll be able to see less movies in the theater since I'll be up at school most of the time. I'll see what I can with what money I can, but I know that the Netflix cue will have plenty coming its way when some of these movies come out on DVD.

Comedy

Let's talk comedy tonight, which seems to be enough of an enigmatic genre to constantly be overlooked. There is a lot of art in making people laugh, but there is also a lot of non-art. I tend to think that people (and Oscar voters alike) would be able to discern what is comedy and what is bullshit, but not often people do. That's why Meet the Spartans was tops at the box office this weekend. Why Meet the Spartans was even made. So let's get to the comedies that I think fall into the opposite category of actually funny movies--movies that made me laugh.

This is not to say that I don't exclusively enjoy good comedic films. One of my favorite comedies is Dodgeball, for instance, which probably falls into the same category as Meet the Spartans: kind of funny, sophomoric and not much substance. Not much art in the film making itself. But there were some damn good funny movies that came out this year, so let's get down to bidniss.

4) Aquateen Hungerforce Colon Movie Film For Theaters -- Here's a prime example of that shit-humor film-making. I'm such a big fan of the show, though, that this movie couldn't help but make me laugh. It's surprising that the non-sequitur style that their humor has was able to play out for a full 90 minutes or so. It somehow didn't get stale, and it kept me entertained for far longer than I expected from a fifteen minute TV show.

3) Juno -- this movie was just downright cute. I liked that it didn't play to some of the Hollywood stereotypes of dickish parents who Juno has to hide her pregnancy from or that the guy who got her pregnant skips town and stops talking to her. She openly acknowledges the mistake and is willing to go through with it and to give this child the best life she can. There are definitely some interesting subplots and the whole movie is rife with awesomeness.

2) Knocked Up -- Judd Apatow knows what he's doing. This movie is one that was made by someone who knows how to make me laugh. Knows how to make a comedy with realistic and well done characters. I liked that this movie was sappy and funny and mean and honest all at the same time. Seth Rogen really showed that he can be a leading man, and one that I'd never want to get impregnated by.

1) Superbad -- I have such a connection to this movie that it would have been hard to not give it #1. In High School, I was Seth a lot of the time, it seemed like. Aside from the drive to get laid, I was the loud mouth, vulgar kid in high school, constantly trying to find a girlfriend. And my best friend was Evan. The names in the movie should be changed for clarity, but it's the truth. He talls and skinny and awkward--not so much anymore, but, still, at the time the movie came out, the characters spoke to us because we've been in that same situation before. We've never gone on a booze hunt or anything, but the whole having to cope with a separation that is looming after spending two years sitting around and talking about nothing. I enjoyed this movie, and it helped that it was funny as hell.

Westerns, horror, Animated

So last year, I did a straight top ten list of my favorite movies... But this year, I'm going to give out "awards" and then choose my favorite of the year.

In 2007, I saw 41 new films. That's nothing compared to what some reviewers see in a single month, but it's still a solid amount of movies to make an opinion out of. But I know I've missed some really good ones and a lot of the movies I saw this year were ones I finally got around to seeing (like Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys, the Prestige, Factotum, The Saddest Music in the World, etc).

2007 also had a solid amount of Westerns released--all of which I dragged my friends to. There were three typical westerns (There Will Be Blood, 3:10 to Yuma, and the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and one atypical neo-western (No Country for Old Men). So, the first category will be "BEST NEW WESTERN," and it will be a shoot-out between these four films.

4) 3:10 TO YUMA -- A great, badass, slick movie. Christian Bale has really come into his own as an actor and I really enjoyed all the various elements of this film involving his son and Russell Crowe's character and how everything ended. There was nothing overly magical about this movie: it was rough and quintessentially western.

3) The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -- You choose the show-time you wish to see the movie knowing its ending, you buy the tickets knowing the ending, you sit through the movies 2 and a half hours knowing the ending. So why did people subject themselves to this movie? Because it's a commentary on today's culture of Thirsty Scavengers looking for any and everything they can read about their favorite stars. All the gossip, all the trash, is contained in this film and is embodied by Casey Affleck's character who in the kills Jesse James and then subsequently lets it eat him alive. What we let consume us will eventually finish us off. We always let the beast in, but it's our choice whether it escapes with everything we have. And this movie tried to get at people in the same way, as if to say, "Do you see what you're doing to the actors? They're just people, goddammit!" And having Brad Pitt play Jesse James was a priceless meta tool through this whole movie-game of "Look at yourselves."

2) There will be blood -- Daniel Plainview is a sick, sick, asshole of a man. I don't even know if he is a man, but instead an embodiment of greed. That can't be true though, because there are moments in this film where that hard shell of meanness and money crack and you see that he really does love his adopted son. Eli Sunday is his synthetic opposite--he wants all the same things: money power and fame and control over the people, but he's chosen the religious route instead of the Black Gold Route. This movie is long and slow and it tears at your patience, but if you're able to sit through it without getting up and going out for a smoke or leaving altogether, you'll come to realize that this is a great multi-character study set against a beautiful backdrop of the old west.

1) No Country for Old Men -- The neo-western wins out. Why? Because I love how scary Anton Chigurh (as played by Javier Bardem) is in this movie. He made me shit my pants every time he spoke. He made me cry everytime he killed someone with his compressed airgun thing that they used to use to kill cows (see that creepy scene in the van in Texas Chainsaw Massacre). And Llewellyn Moss(as played by Josh Brolin) isn't his antithesis, but instead, his equal. One who will kill and exploit to get out of his situation and do whatever it takes to bring vigilante justice. And one step behind is Tommy Lee Jones' character as the elder sheriff, slowly realizing that this world is going darker and darker and darker by the moment and there's nothing he can do about it. He hates it, but he knows that if he continues to work, it will just eat him. So he retires. And that's how the movie ends. In anti-climax and letdowns galore. It was a big slap in the face to the viewers who wanted the final shootout and to have some sort of justice prevail. But that's just more blood for the sake of it.

--

So those were the Westerns released this year, and the one that wasn't even really a Western was my favorite. But it grew on me after I read a National Geographic article about how crazy West Texas is. This lady there lives at the end of a 40 mile dead-end road. No shit. People there are weird, and the murders are even worse.

Next up are the Horror awards. If I didn't have to choose movies that were released in 2007 but instead the ones I saw in 2007, the award would go to Dawn of the Dead, the original from 1978. That's one hell of a horror movie. Or it would go to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a beautifully atmospheric horror movie where not everything is killed by a chainsaw.

But I have to go with movies that were released this year, and so the list is as follows:

5) Planet Terror -- Funnier and more fun that it was scary, but it exuded all the right horror elements: sex and gore and violence. It was great as a setup into Death Proof and as the first half of Grindhouse. But I don't know about it away from the overall experience. However, there were some really good performances and some really great scares throughout the film.


4) 30 Days of Night -- Scared the crap out of me. Maybe it was because all day I was psyching myself out for it by saying, "I'm going to get scared, I'm going to get scared" but it was actually really creepy. The methodology of the vampires didn't seem to make any sense. Why would they want to kill everyone on the first night and then starve? Is a 29-day Disco Dance Party that much fun with out sustenance? Maybe it is, but I'm just hypothesizing. The scares were there but not much else was...

3) 1408 -- Overall, not the best movie. However, I have to admit that I do have a soft spot of John Cusack after he was in High Fidelity. His character has a lot of skepticism and doubt going through this project, and all of it is torn apart by this single room of horror. Stephen King knows what we hate, and he does a great job of writing them. And then people do an even better job translating it onto the screen. Unless it's DreamCatcher. That movie sucked.

2) El Orfanato -- A horror movie in the vein of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Everything is scary but you don't know why. The atmosphere just simply exudes fear. And the last third of the movie is when everything kicks into high gear and it just straight up kicks your ass.

1) 28 Weeks Later -- I have to admit something else: I also have a soft spot for zombies. The zombies in the original "Dead" trilogy where this movie and its predecessor draw a lot from are scary in their ominous way, loafing around and gaining in numbers. The zombies in these movies RUN. They RUN. And that's probably the scariest thing is that these zombies will sprint after you and chase you and keep at you until you fall and they have at you. One reviewer was right in saying that this movie makes you want to get into shape. Y'know, just in case something like that happened. But it wasn't even the zombies that brought this movie to the top of the horror list. It was the US Government and the whole idea that they were running less from the zombies and more from the people who have a total moral and ethical code within them. But they're trained opposite, trained in rage, and thusly become zombies to "The Man." That idea fascinated me, for sure.

And let's run out the one animated feature of the year that deserves any sort of mentioning....

Talking Rats! Talking Rats! I love Ratatouille. It was a great kids film about striving to be your best no matter the obstacles, no matter whose hair you have to pull (har de har). This film was so broad-base emotional that you couldn't help but let Remy and his struggles wiggle their way under the door sill into your heart.

Okay. Comedy tomorrow or tonight. In a different post.

This is the Zodiac Speaking

I'm up here, feeling sick. I think I just have a cold but if things persist through Monday, I'm gonna visit the campus physician.

I got really sick before I left so I figured I wouldn't get sick up here. I figured wrong. So I'll get better. My room mate and a bunch of other guys are going camping this weekend and I'm glad I at least have an excuse to get out of that. Freezing my ass off? Count me out.

Lately, classes have been going well. There's a lot of papers to write, but they all start in late february-early March. And I figure it's a good start on what the next few semesters will be like. Both the Journalism and the Religious Studies departments seem to prefer papers over multiple choice tests, which I have no problem with. I've never been good at tests, but I've been good at papers, so it should work out well.

I have yet to find a good church around here. I was going to go to the Arcata First Baptist's College Group last night, but I was too sick to go, so I have to wait until next week to try it out.

But I will try it out. I need some sort of spiritual guidance especially now that I am discovering new ideas and everything and I want to stay a Christian. That's my choice. It's not that I want to stay sheltered, it's rather that I already know that it's the one true religion (whatever that means, really) and that all these other religions are merely tempting. That's just how I am. All religions are trying to reach up the same mountain towards enlightenment, but Christianity is the only one that actually achieves that.

What's interesting is the idea of multiple lives. My Hinduism teacher was saying that the fact that this life that we are living where we have the opportunity to learn and to make choices and to have the freedom about these things is like a sea turtle coming up from the bottom of the ocean through the hole in a log--every thousand years. The way he said it made it way more impactful.

That idea coincides with a previous thought about the fact that everyone has the ability to see Christ, to see God, that maybe it's through reincarnation that our choice and our vision is made. Maybe there's no hell, just this Earth perpetuated by broken and lost souls, at one time finally seeing God. And when this cycle runs down, when all have finally seen God, the second coming will occur and Jesus will be King.

But I could definitely be wrong, none of this is biblically based. I wished it was because it makes so much sense, but it's not. So, then, I wait and let this idea simmer until I find something Holy and connected. And when that happens, the idea comes soaring back to life but instead with evidence. And evidence is always what it comes down to. Isn't it?

LOGOS::GOD

I've been dwelling on this passage from John lately, it's the very very very beginning, 1:1 status. It's this:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

Okay, let's start at the beginning. This is the part that tripped me out the most. "In the beginning was the Word." Okay, Word=Jesus=Light. Got it. I understand that. But the crazy thing is that the Greek word for "Word" used is logos--that is, "logic." So, Jesus is the Word is Logic. Therefore, God is logic. All things logical come from him. This is why nature abhors a vacuum. Because it's illogical. Useless things are illogical. All things made have made sense and had a purpose.

Do you see where it is going? The simple fact that John used the word logos to describe Christ set up the entire theology that we have a purpose. Whoa. We are logical creatures because the Word is God and was with God.

Before we go on, I wanted to mention the seeming oddity it is that the Word was God but also was with God. I have yet to make the clearest sense of this (I doubt the human mind is actually capable of comprehending fully any part of God), but it seems to be that since God is the Light within everything, and he is with us, but He is also in us as the Holy Ghost, then the Word is the same way. The Word is God. The Word is With God. It's the same problem people have that Jesus was God and also was a begotten from God. It's unfathomable, but only if you try and box God and all His divinity into human words as I am failing to do.

We press on.

From this logic, the light which shines in man comes--life. God is life is the Word is Logic is Christ. It goes deeper. This light is eternal, unending. God is within us as the light, or as our souls. Our souls are unending. They are what leave this grave of a body upon our deaths to be returned to the light. It is like when you shine a flashlight into a mirror: it goes out towards the mirror and then returns again. But the metaphor breaks down in that the light goes everywhere else in the room when it is refracted. Our souls only return to one place. Heaven. God's realm. The realm of the eternal.

And John the Baptist had the task of trying to explain all of this to people while denying that he was the Christ. He had the task of explaining to the blind that Christ was coming as a man to repent our sins so get in this river and let me get you all wet in his name. This is a problem considering that Jesus wasn't being recognized because we the people are blinded by sin.

Another aside, concerning the nature of Jesus creating the world and being in the world. That's like you being able to, while still functioning, go into your brain and tell it to shape up. Then dying and returning to your life here. Jesus, from the beginning of beginnings knew what he had to do. Go into his own world so corrupted by free will and make it a little bit better. He knew, too, that not everyone would believe, even 2000 years later.

I will end it here for now because it feels like I've done a terrible job of explaining it thus far. But, instead of deleting, retracting, and denying this piece, I leave it in the hopes that someone gets something started in their minds. Let the logic flow.

It breaks my heart.

The problem I feared is the problem that's occurring.

I can't meet people, I haven't met people. It's only been a week and a half. Give it time. That's rational, right? But right now all I want to do is go home and see my parents and my girlfriend and my dogs and everything that's familiar to me. Everything I disliked about Rancho Cucamonga I long for now. The traffic, the people, the everything. At least it's familiar.

And everything I loved about home is spinning around into a giant knot of longing. I want Kelley. I want her so bad that it hurts me inside to only be able to text and to talk with her over the air. So much air separating us and all I want to do is breathe next to her. To go home to her, to feel her warmth and her smell. I miss her so much.

I miss the way my dog Annie would harass you until she could lick your face. The way Alvie would growl at everything and it'd just sound like he had something stuck in his throat. The way my dad laughs. The way my mom eats popcorn with a glass of milk. The TV. I miss the Game Show Network and, soon, I'm going to miss the baseball games.

So I'll chunk it out and deal with it piecemeal. First, and foremost: Kelley. I'll get to see her and all of this in a month. But it'll never be enough. I know that the summers and the spring breaks and the winter breaks and the weekends will never be enough.

But I enjoy my classes so goddam much that I'm now stuck in this paradox of wanting to go home but also wanting for monday when classes rotate around and begin again. My professors are so interesting and it's all so awesome... But once class ends, I am stuck again with no friends for now.

It'll all come to pass... Except probably the missing Kelley bit. I couldn't get enough of her when I was home. And now I have to get all it and more in a single once-a-month swoop.

Person: Who are you?

Wildlife. Let's start there. It's something that, admitted, is a pivotal study for sure. With no ecosystem, we have no humans. Without people studying the effects of humans on the ecosytem, we may have no ecosystem and the Ice Age would surely come.

But I've got to hand it to the people who are into that. Studying an animal that doesn't know who you are or how to contact with you and probably pissed that there's a microphone following it around.

That's how it seems to be with Marine Biology. You can't just pull a Free Willy or a Flipper, latch on and ride these motherfuckers straight to Alaska to observe their eating and their mating and their migrations. They don't come to the surface enough. You'd run out of air.

And You probably wouldn't learn anything, either, because they'd probably be scared as to why this thing in a wet suit and face mask is riding me like a Prison bitch. Or they'd feel like a potential rape victim with a dark submarine lurking behind them and watching them mate. They may not be able to perform under that kind of pressure. You may even get skewed data that says they shit an enormous amount and not realize it may be because they're nervous creatures feeling like a rape victim or a prison bitch...

But they definitely would not feel like a vessel for learning about science. They don't even know what the fuck science is for that matter. They just want to get to Baja from Alaska for a little Slap and Tickle. Lay the seed. Then go home and beat their wives and mutter under their breath (in sonar, of course) "Why didn't I stay with the nice Mexican Gray Back I met down there who gives way better oral."

If I were going to do a science, I'd do something tangible. However, I can't even think of a science I'd want to be involved with because of one reason: 1) I have no fucking desire to ever fucking be a scientist. Find a picture of me. Do I look like the science type? No.

And if I do, then fuck you. I'm an artist (allegedly). I create (supposedly). The scientists do the work and I sit around and wonder why they do it.

But all the world needs all the people to form a society and keep us running. This ties back into the idea of Spiritual Gifts and the Body of Christ I learned about in Church. We are all one Person, broken into little people. And the things we enjoy and the things we undertake all benefit all the other little people and, somehow, the Person, in some way.

That's why we need the homeless. To drink all the alcohol and remind us why we're shooting up methadone now. (That could also be why we need the people who spend their lives performing urinalyses)

That's why we need the mediocre. To remind us that there's a bottom and that they've reached it and Damned if I'll ever work as a Wal-Mart greeter for all my life.

That's why we need marine biologists. To remind us that we want tangibles. Or maybe I just do.

It goes on. It's beautiful. It's essential. It's urinalyses.

Rightness. wrongness. above it all. We are slaves to morality yet he is above all of that--the creator of all that. I am in awe of that idea. Of the idea of a God.

Even at my lowest, most denying-ist point, I knew there was a God. Maybe because I had nowhere else to turn and old habits die hard. But, c'mon, the human body itself is a great example of how there has to be something greater turning the cogs. The fact that an entire person runs on atoms to click into cells to click into organs to click into fullness in just the right way? That's not the work of chance.

We have free will. The only reason God knows what we're going to do is because he's above time. CS Lewis wrote about how everything to him is the present. And I find that a fascinating insight. The whole idea that the realm of God can seperate moments that run continuous in our lives so he can listen to all our prayers. Address all our problems. That's how he's able to be a personal God. Not by superspeed or anything, but by being removed from the things that restrain us as humans.

Christ was the way that God became human. And boy would I hate to be him... All the temptation and the pressure to do what you know is already going to happeN? Whew. Fuck that, count me out, I'm gonna go get drunk and weep. I'm not that strong. But, then again, I'm also not fully God and fully man. I'm only fully man and fully meat.

If Assholes could fly, this place would be busier than O'Hare

Well, I'm here.

How do I like it? I think it'll get better once classes start, once my room mate comes back, when things are actually moving, open, and not stagnant. When I have people to talk to.

But it's really pretty, I have to admit that much. I've never lived anywhere but Rancho Cucamonga, and, damn, was I missing out on the esthetics checkmark.

But, still, there were people to talk to in Rancho, usually. Even my mom if I ever got lordy-lord-desperate.

The food is good, my bed is comfortable and warm, the coffee is good, the campus is clean, the people are nice once i get the courage to talk to them. Some are just a little crazy about weed. Others are just crazy. Though they all seem to be from Sacramento. The crazy about weed ones are the expected parts.

I've decided to double major because I'm crazy. I've decided to better myself in any way I can. It's hard being away from the person I love. I lost one of my books already. Have you seen my copy of Mere Christianity? I'd like it back. I haven't finished it yet.

On the note of that book, I feel better about God after reading most of it. It's re-beginning to make sense.

I'll probably go down to the bottom of the "j" and watch whatever movie they're showing at six. Dinner at 530 or so. Now, what to do for an hour...?

Pleas

I hate that the iPod has become the best mp3 player available. They shut down Rio, essentially. That makes me sad. I hate that the word iPod has become synonymous with "mp3 player" and, when you have something that has no affiliation with the iPod, no affilitiation with Apple--it's a fucking Creative Zen, let's say--it's still a goddam iPod.

It's sickening.

--

I don't think that the Bends is Radiohead's best album. It has too much of that mid-90's guitar feel to it. I can't describe it, but I know it involves acoustic strumming, quick hits toward minor chords, and a holisitically big, big sound.

They began to hit timeless when they released OK Computer. From then on, it hasn't felt time-weathered, even though it's been ten years or so.

--

When people tell you that There will be Blood is too long, and is boring, don't listen to them. It's a long, thick movie filled to the brims of character study and confrontations. One of my favorite reviewers online, by the name of Vern (website here) said that it flirts with greatness, and even get lucky with it later in the night. I think that's a fair assumption because it feels like a really great movie but only time will tell whether it can stand up to its own test--for time is what destroys all, rebuilds all, and creates all.

--
Thingswill probably get weirdfromhere

G;asses pff. lights off, radio off. Something amiss. Yelled at my dog. Afraid to gosleep. Getting antsy. I punched myself in the head last night. Had a dream about something and wound up punching myself twice in the temple. I'm afraid it's going to happen again to night. I almost got a black eye from it. And I'm probably going to say something outlandish tonight, too.

I think it's because I'm leaving in a week and I'm scared of it. I hae to finally admit it: I'm scared of leaving. I'm scared of leaving my family and my friends and my lover and my dogs and my town and my house and my familiar things and my comfort and everything I've ever known. I've only ever lived in one house with blood relations. And now I'm forcing myself to move to another place where the weather kind of sucks and whereI don't know anyone. If this winds up being a horible experience, I have no one to blame but myself.

And the whole idea of blame brings me to my next point. I realized that I've believed in God for so long because i have no faith in humanity. I really don't. And the iea of God being there takes everything out of human hands and puts it in his. I'm much more willing to trust a god than I am to trust a human. Even if that God is a jealous, angry, punishing, atavisticGod with no real sense of anything he's ever done, has fucked up multiple times--he chose the wrong fucking tribe in israel, let's face facts. And he even tried to repair it by sending a part of himself to get crucified. He's a little crazy.

He probably drinks too much. God is probably an alcoholic. maybe everything we are at one time came from sometthing else. And when we die, we just go to the great drunk in the sky and complain about how shitty our years on Earth were. Then we reconcile, and agree to do it again.

I think it's strange when I se people that look like other people. A lot like other people. It's as if our genetics are so interlaced that others and strangers and people we think are funny are all interrelated. We probably are if you believe the great Drunk in the sky.

If you couldn't tell, I'm actually a little mad at God right now because I'm a little confused over his entire existence. I don't even know anymore. I've fallen that far, it's true. What was once strong and solid as rock is now as shifty and foamy as the waves. I can't seem to fathom anything but enough to be enough. It seems that he's not enough. He's the creator and the cause and I want to ust blame him for everything. All I've ever done is use him as a crutch,,, I remember admitting this during some crazy-ass fucking exercise at a summer camp three years ago. I admitted that God's a crutch and not much else. i thought it was interesting but I didn't think of it much until now.

God was never anything more than a way to be cynical about humanity. Sure it makes me sad, but it's the honest to god how I feel right now. He exists, he's out there. He has to be.

He's just nowhere near to me.

EVERYTHING | am.

A little over a week and not much has changed. I think it's all a little hazy. Can't seem to get a grasp on anything that is or isn't new.

I completed Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. It may be the most socially relevant, allegorical game I've ever played. I may expound on that later. But I've been really lazy with keeping up with this thing, as with keeping up with some old friends, so I'll try my best. I'm leaving and shit. Distance. Scared of leaving Her. That's the main thing I'm afraid of. Not the room mate or the living away from everything. But the being away from my love for a month at a time. I can't comprehend it. I don't know if I'll be able to handle it without going crazy. I know I won't be getting drunk because I'd probably just start crying about how much I miss her.

And she's what God walked me into before He walked away.That final thing to keep me alive. You don't need Me anymore. All of that.

A little hazy, a little dirty. Still a little sleepy from standing for 13 hours. Not much else to say.

It's hard writing these blogs because I feel like, at times, that everything I say on here has to have some sort of crazy insane meaning. And this doesn't. This is just honesty and pity-me-ity.

Ridonkulous.