As in: another day in paradise. I so hate myself right now. My career is a fucking joke. There is nothing here. Tomorrow I go back to being a grip. I hate being a grip. I loathe it. Certainly I am grateful for the work and the money, but it's not what I'm supposed to be doing. It's not the job I'm supposed to have. It's not the job I want to be doing. There's nothing wrong with a little manual labor, when it's gardening and or helping a friend put in his kitchen. Fifteen hours on a movie set? No Thank You!
But I've wasted about twenty of my prime earning years for this. I lived in the fear of risk and thus didn't try or accomplish anything. Now I just get to live with that feeling of panic that rips through you when you realize that this is as good as it gets and what the fuck are you going to do when you're sixty? Fuck, I'll be working until I'm eighty. And I thought I had the chops to be a millionaire. Only if I win the lottery.
Thought for the day? Can I die now?
Monday, January 29, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Hotel California - Ozark Style
Ah, incarceration. The twice-daily butt fucking and the thrice-daily beatings… what can be more fulfilling than to be in a room the size of a Tokyo hotel suite with one open-air toilet? “Smells like you loved that bar-b-que yesterday, Tex.” I would never be able to poop.
The penal system here in California has become a major source of statewide pride. We have more inmates per capita, serving longer sentences, for the most ridiculous crimes, than anywhere else on the planet. Granted we’re not as bad as Iran or Singapore or Turkey, but then they don’t aspire to the level of civility that we do. Or do we…. Hmmmm.
I feel like this about prisons: they are about two separate but related and important questions. One is should they exist; the other is what should they be like. What connects them together for me is this idea of a social contract. Mills spoke about the social contract and how if you treat others correctly you will get treated correctly in return. My idea of prisons is that they are the ultimate punishment for taking that social contract for granted.
That’s why I am not on my usual team for this debate. While I believe that torture is unwarranted (unless it’s the Arab guy who was giving me the eye at Sunnin yesterday. He is so Al Qaeda), the idea that we are not giving our prisoner’s top notch medical care and their creature comforts is craziness. These dude and dudettes decided that the covenant that exists between us, the one that our society stands on, wasn’t important enough to them. They decided to break that contract and fuck someone over. That, to me, means that we don’t have to be so nice to them on the flipside.
So if it’s a question of sending convicts to Tennessee to end overcrowding and make it safer for the guards then ship them out. What the hell do we care if they aren’t for it? Three hots and a cot, some books and an hour outside: that’s what you get when you break the social contract. It’s the fear of that deal that keeps a lot of people inside the law and outside of jail.
And if you’re wondering: I think that the greatest break of the social contract is to take another life. You do that to someone and you forfeit all of your rights under out society. So yes I am for the death penalty for First Degree murder convictions. I think that if you want to make that choice and you get caught, then bing, boom, out the door you go.
The penal system here in California has become a major source of statewide pride. We have more inmates per capita, serving longer sentences, for the most ridiculous crimes, than anywhere else on the planet. Granted we’re not as bad as Iran or Singapore or Turkey, but then they don’t aspire to the level of civility that we do. Or do we…. Hmmmm.
I feel like this about prisons: they are about two separate but related and important questions. One is should they exist; the other is what should they be like. What connects them together for me is this idea of a social contract. Mills spoke about the social contract and how if you treat others correctly you will get treated correctly in return. My idea of prisons is that they are the ultimate punishment for taking that social contract for granted.
That’s why I am not on my usual team for this debate. While I believe that torture is unwarranted (unless it’s the Arab guy who was giving me the eye at Sunnin yesterday. He is so Al Qaeda), the idea that we are not giving our prisoner’s top notch medical care and their creature comforts is craziness. These dude and dudettes decided that the covenant that exists between us, the one that our society stands on, wasn’t important enough to them. They decided to break that contract and fuck someone over. That, to me, means that we don’t have to be so nice to them on the flipside.
So if it’s a question of sending convicts to Tennessee to end overcrowding and make it safer for the guards then ship them out. What the hell do we care if they aren’t for it? Three hots and a cot, some books and an hour outside: that’s what you get when you break the social contract. It’s the fear of that deal that keeps a lot of people inside the law and outside of jail.
And if you’re wondering: I think that the greatest break of the social contract is to take another life. You do that to someone and you forfeit all of your rights under out society. So yes I am for the death penalty for First Degree murder convictions. I think that if you want to make that choice and you get caught, then bing, boom, out the door you go.
Friday, January 26, 2007
My Kingdom for a Job!
Another week of not working and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It’s really wearing me down. All I fucking want is a chance. Just a fucking chance to show what I can do. But it isn’t happening and it breaking me up.
What I take from this is that I’m a jerk. I’m a jerk at work that doesn’t do good work and isn’t fun to be around. Maybe it’s more of the former and less of the latter. I’m fun enough, but I don’t do good work. It’s because I’m afraid to commit to my job. That and the fact that I have trouble concentrating, so I wander a lot and don’t always remember to do things. And that I am a fucking loser. Let’s not forge that.
I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I found something like, but that got pulled out from under me because the company decided to keep it freelance instead of full-time. So I had to get laid off and can’t go back until May. Fuck me. What a sweet job and a great boss. Man my butt is stretched out.
It’s the time I should be earning. Instead I’m suffering the errors of my arrogant, uncaring youth. I didn’t think I was going to get old. And never thought that I would have no career by the time I was forty. I mean: no fucking career. This is pathetic. Maybe it’s time to check out…
What I take from this is that I’m a jerk. I’m a jerk at work that doesn’t do good work and isn’t fun to be around. Maybe it’s more of the former and less of the latter. I’m fun enough, but I don’t do good work. It’s because I’m afraid to commit to my job. That and the fact that I have trouble concentrating, so I wander a lot and don’t always remember to do things. And that I am a fucking loser. Let’s not forge that.
I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I found something like, but that got pulled out from under me because the company decided to keep it freelance instead of full-time. So I had to get laid off and can’t go back until May. Fuck me. What a sweet job and a great boss. Man my butt is stretched out.
It’s the time I should be earning. Instead I’m suffering the errors of my arrogant, uncaring youth. I didn’t think I was going to get old. And never thought that I would have no career by the time I was forty. I mean: no fucking career. This is pathetic. Maybe it’s time to check out…
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Libertarian for a Day!
Here’s how my crazy mind works. I’m reading this great story about the murder problem and the fumbling, bumbling way that the mayor, council and police chief are dealing with it… I mean this town really has Big Apple Envy… and I start thinking like a libertarian.
We live on a big round Petri dish. That Petri dish has a limited amount of resources that we all compete for every day. People are living longer. People are using more. How in the fuck is that supposed to work. Let me tell you where my head went: we are trying to eradicate death. We are curing disease. We are increasing the life span of people world-wide. How are people supposed to die?
People need to die. We need to get rid of the old and welcome in the new. This article says they can’t figure out why murder rates go up? You’ve got more people competing for less and less stuff and you wonder why they kill each other. The best way to lower the murder rate is to let people start dying of tuberculosis. Stop trying to cure cancer. You can’t have your cake and live to two-hundred. The more people we shove into the phone booth we call Earth, the more agitated we are going to get. And that means we are going to start killing each other.
Read yesterday that by the year 2020 China will have almost 30 million more men than women. (Check this out from 2004) That’s with the one child law that they enacted a decade ago. Thirty million angry, lonely, horny guys with lots of free time on their hands is a real road map to disaster. After about twenty years of jerking off to Britney Spears photos they’ll be ready to roll and that could mean right across the Bering Strait.
So the libertarian in me says to stop trying so hard to cure what ails us. People need to die and better they get Cancer than to say goodbye looking down the barrel of a pistol while you’re taking money out of the ATM. At the least stop pretending that we can’t figure out why there’s so much famine, war, and violent crime. I mean, we are just animals.
Day 33 without work. I’m still not sure what stage of grief I’m in, but it sucks.
Article of the Day: Stranger than fiction...
We live on a big round Petri dish. That Petri dish has a limited amount of resources that we all compete for every day. People are living longer. People are using more. How in the fuck is that supposed to work. Let me tell you where my head went: we are trying to eradicate death. We are curing disease. We are increasing the life span of people world-wide. How are people supposed to die?
People need to die. We need to get rid of the old and welcome in the new. This article says they can’t figure out why murder rates go up? You’ve got more people competing for less and less stuff and you wonder why they kill each other. The best way to lower the murder rate is to let people start dying of tuberculosis. Stop trying to cure cancer. You can’t have your cake and live to two-hundred. The more people we shove into the phone booth we call Earth, the more agitated we are going to get. And that means we are going to start killing each other.
Read yesterday that by the year 2020 China will have almost 30 million more men than women. (Check this out from 2004) That’s with the one child law that they enacted a decade ago. Thirty million angry, lonely, horny guys with lots of free time on their hands is a real road map to disaster. After about twenty years of jerking off to Britney Spears photos they’ll be ready to roll and that could mean right across the Bering Strait.
So the libertarian in me says to stop trying so hard to cure what ails us. People need to die and better they get Cancer than to say goodbye looking down the barrel of a pistol while you’re taking money out of the ATM. At the least stop pretending that we can’t figure out why there’s so much famine, war, and violent crime. I mean, we are just animals.
Day 33 without work. I’m still not sure what stage of grief I’m in, but it sucks.
Article of the Day: Stranger than fiction...
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Back Again, Naturally...
Welcome back again, I say. And this time for good. What is it about this blog of mine that makes me hide and shiver in my boots? The thought of putting down my thoughts, where no one is even going to read what I say, scares the bepoopy out of me. What the fuck is up with that?
I’m not working and that would seem to be the perfect time to take five minutes and write down my measly little thoughts. So start the timer… now.
I joined Myspace a couple of weeks ago because some friends told me that we would be able to keep in touch that way. It’s opened up a world that I just don’t really understand. What is going on there? Are people really keeping alive friendships by leaving little comments for each other? I can’t even remember to check my site. It’s just not in my “Circle of Memory”.
There’s always been a wide chasm between the under twenty-five crowd and those over. It’s a sad day when you cross that threshold and begin to think more about paychecks, retirement and your legacy than on your immediate gratification and new toys. I try to stay open to the world; I keep abreast of the trends that the kids love. But it’s just impossible for me to change the way I think. I still think in the old media way: read the newspapers, the magazines, watch television, talk on the phone. I don’t email as much as some, I don’t use my wireless PDA device to send text messages to the guy I just met at the bar who was looking for a producer. I don’t even have a wireless PDA device. I thought having a cell phone was enough.
That’s probably why I’m out of work. I better get out my toolbox and see if I can’t rewire my brain pan.
Today's article: Making money, honey.
I’m not working and that would seem to be the perfect time to take five minutes and write down my measly little thoughts. So start the timer… now.
I joined Myspace a couple of weeks ago because some friends told me that we would be able to keep in touch that way. It’s opened up a world that I just don’t really understand. What is going on there? Are people really keeping alive friendships by leaving little comments for each other? I can’t even remember to check my site. It’s just not in my “Circle of Memory”.
There’s always been a wide chasm between the under twenty-five crowd and those over. It’s a sad day when you cross that threshold and begin to think more about paychecks, retirement and your legacy than on your immediate gratification and new toys. I try to stay open to the world; I keep abreast of the trends that the kids love. But it’s just impossible for me to change the way I think. I still think in the old media way: read the newspapers, the magazines, watch television, talk on the phone. I don’t email as much as some, I don’t use my wireless PDA device to send text messages to the guy I just met at the bar who was looking for a producer. I don’t even have a wireless PDA device. I thought having a cell phone was enough.
That’s probably why I’m out of work. I better get out my toolbox and see if I can’t rewire my brain pan.
Today's article: Making money, honey.
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