Newton was a Lover

I've been working in San Diego (again) for the past few weeks. A group of friends and acquaintances are on their way from LA to somewhere in Baja to attend some four day long festival full of nudity, fire, and drugs. So, as they stopped for the night here to meet up with others before crossing the border tomorrow, I thought I'd include myself in their plans if only for a brief while.

They had asked me to pick up some beer on my way over and I was happy to oblige. This took up an extra ten minutes or so of an already short lunch break I was taking, and then I wasted another couple getting lost.

By the way, if you're reading (I know you're not) I'd like to again thank you, you thugs hanging outside the closed liquor store, for telling me where to find an open one.

When I finally made it I was greeted by seven or so laughing maniacs inside a tucked-away little house. The strange man in front assaulted my crotch with a rubber penis the size of a baseball bat. I'd like to think I handled that situation with grace and respect, as I grabbed the front of it and moaned deeply. They accepted the beer with many thanks and I passed hugs and handshakes around the room.

Most of my very short time there was spent sipping on a beer, leaning against one wall or another, laughing reservedly at one absurd outburst or another. These are truly happy people. And they're truly friends with each other to boot. Wish I could say it was contagious, but either the buttons on my tucked-in shirt or maybe something deeper immunized me from the infectious fun.

When was the last time I'd had that kind of uncensored, wild, giggly, fall down on each-other fun? I wanted to catch that bug, but couldn't. Sure, most of the people were strangers, but I knew their kind - I could have been as open and snuggly as possible, had I made an effort.

What's that though? Making an effort to let go? It seems equally logical and oxymoronic to me, but what do I know about it? I'm the guy standing in the corner at this party. Maybe I should ask the guy spanking people with his home-made leather tassel-whip...maybe when there's a break between songs.

It all appeals to a big part of me - the fun part of me, I guess - but obviously not all of me, or else I ought to be a lot more comfortable in these situations and a lot less reticent, as I'm definitely proving myself now.

I think, like most things, it comes down to thermodynamics and Newtonian physics. There's a big mass of heavily energized particles - call them party goers - and it's only natural their entropic gravity pulls me in and seeks to tear apart my lackluster being into exuberant chaos, regardless of what I actually want. It's science, baby!

That, and I don't often feel like I'm part of any great system of love or warmth. Usually I'm more of an errant asteroid drifting in between galaxies than part of a tightly-knit solar system. And hey, it can get lonesome out on the intergalactic prairie.

Really though, I don't know just how cold a creature I am. I do know, however, that cold-blooded animals seek out warmth more fervently and more desperately than any mammal.

Thus, thermodynamics once again proves its useful application to human emotion.

Nobody Read This!

Thus spake the God of his own mind to the masses imaginative!

Really, nobody reads this blog anyway, so there's no command I can be more certain of people obeying. Yeah, it makes me feel like a big man, alright? Whatever, you're still not listening.

I just had a coffee with a friend at work who feels his best writing is already behind him. He's about 30 years old and feels creatively burned out. Yes, yes, this happens to artists and laypeople alike, but isn't it always just a little bit sad when a person willfully kisses goodbye his or her imagination?

No, it's not, you universalistic simpleton (who ever you aren't). That would be the easy answer. If you had cared to probe more deeply into his situation, you would know that he also feels his best writing was a direct result of being depressed. So, allow me to rephrase:

Isn't it always just a little bit sad when a person willfully kisses goodbye his or her depression?

If you say "no" here, I'll accept it as a valid, albeit half-assed, answer. It shouldn't always be sad to leave behind depression, even if it did pump one's creative juices for a time. If you're happy, fuck art! So the theory goes anyway. It makes sense to me, in principle at least.

For me though, a lack of artistry is one of the things that fuels my discontent (fine, call it depression if you want, you non-existent, glib-speaking blackguard). The rest of life, so far as I can see it, is never fully ambrosia, nor ever fully shit. Even if 99.99% of the germs in my life are killed by some cosmic Lysol, I'll always have my artistic discontent to keep me writing... even if it is intermittent and pointless.

Will you just shut up already? Yes, all of you, you invisible and silently critical bastards.

Retroactive

2007 was, all in all, a year full of negativity

  and overwhelmingly bad times in general.  

On a scale of stinky butt to rose-infused peach juice, 

it is definitely more of a stinky butt.

Sure, lots of good things happened, but good things pass.  

That's a bit of a theme for 2007.

Moving forward, allow me to present 2008, 

a year full of promise and hope, yadda yadda.

Cheers!

How the Fox Hounds Us!

So we've all heard it. "Fox News: Unfair and Unbalanced" pretty much says it all. But as someone who has never really watched the Fox News channel before this morning, I was still surprised at the sheer gall and partisanship of their anchors. If you've never watched, please do - whatever your political persuasion, you will be surprised (and possibly pleased) at the blatant right-leanings of their cast.

Tuning in this morning, I heard a commentator rant about the rampant anti-American Marxism of a couple of Seattle school teachers because they banned legos for a brief period as part of a lesson plan, and then the remark that "San Francisco has banned plastic shopping bags...as well as common sense." This was all in 2 minutes, before I changed the station.

Despite the suggestions of its slogans, including, "We Report. You Decide," Fox News is clearly unconcerned with an even-handed approach to the news. This would be fine, if not for the aforementioned war cries. Whatever you have to say about left or right biases elsewhere, in other media outlets, most other major outlets either clearly state their intentions, or else cover up their leanings with a bit more panache than Fox seems capable of mustering. I don't think they even have journalists working there. They have anchors, pundits, commentators, columnists, "fans," and spin doctors, but journalists? I don't think that's their business.

Let's run some quick comparisons here. I'll compare the Fox News website to a couple other major outlets, with similar presentations. Both CNN and the BBC are global news sources with television channels to supplement. On the main news pages for each of these sites, what do we see?

1) On the BBC, we are greeted by the current top stories, spanning the entire globe - from the British-soldiers-in-Iran situation to a a Nigerian village burying victims of a tanker fire. There are 14 pictures in all, representing people, animals, maps and diagrams from all parts of the world.

2) On CNN, there seems to be less information, but equal in scope. The top story is one concerning a storm in middle America, and there is a long ticker of other top stories, with the international and other categories of news nearer the bottom of the page. Only 8 pictures here, including an ad for a TV special with Lou Dobbs.

3) Fox News gives us a headline concerning a former Gonzales aide who plans to defend him in court. A large picture next to it shows us our president, first lady, and Karl Rove (as well as comedian Colin Mochrie, of all people), dressed in evening wear, attending some formal dinner party. In total, there are 28 pictures, the vast majority of which show off the array of young, blonde women (the one exception is Lauren Green) and business-formal-dressed men that write for the outlet. These "columnist's" headlines? "Iran and the American left," "...liberal bloggers...spew hate...," and "...death of Anna Nicole's son."

BBC gives us news of its soldiers being held by Iran, CNN gives us news of a deadly domestic storm, and Fox gives us... conjecture on a court case and our president's night out? Is that even news?

Without beating this too far into the ground, allow me to share another fun section of the website. The subsections under the "World" heading, as opposed to the BBC and CNN's strict regional groupings, include such white-house-accommodating specifics as "Iraq," "Iran," "North Korea," "War on Terror," and, my personal favorite, "Colonel's Corner by Ollie North." My only guess is that, since no serious journalists want to run their credibility into the ground by writing for Fox News, they have to find a man so rife with integrity that he lied to Congress because he thought illegally supporting a foreign paramilitary group was a "neat idea."

NB: While researching (if you can call it that) this article (if you can call it that) I found this website whose name bears a similarity to the pre-ordained title of this entry (that's more accurate): http://www.newshounds.us/ - very entertaining.

Doctor's Note

Please excuse this blogger's absence as of late. He has been trapped beneath a fruit vendor's cart at the corner of Wilshire and Plymouth, in front of the Washington Mutual. He returns to you dirty, but well fed.