some girl has a list of links…

… to other websites she likes. somehow, the sections are broken up into:
blogs
photography
shop

all of those have lots of entries. at the very bottom is a section for:
real people…real cool inspiration

there is one link in there. it’s for redefine.
somehow, that makes me feel pretty good.

other than that, though, i’m feeling a bit shit this morning.

i feel like i have been working really hard to try and coordinate the music publications to do something for sopa/pipa, and that lot of people have responded positively… but then when it comes time to make the thing go down, people just aren’t following through? and i’m confused. considering it’s tomorrow……………….. why would people be so weird about this??????????????????????????? all i’m asking for is a logo and a couple sentence statement about their oppositoin. i tried to make it democratic initially but it seemed way easier to just make it not democratic and to tell people what to do, instead, which is funny, considering i’m talking to editors of publications… anyway, i’m super confused about it all. i really just don’t get anything

i will be glad for today to be over, really…

Independent Music, Art, Film Media Against SOPA + PIPA – REDEFINE

Independent Music, Art, Film Media Against SOPA + PIPA – REDEFINE.

just wrote a thing. i dunno.

universe wish.

this is just a quick wish to send into the universe to say… please get troy another job — a better job — that pays him a bit more money and gives him a more satisfying life experience!

i am trying to mobilize musicians / publications / blogs in light of this, in a hope that arts communities will start giving a shit about policies like this which could really affect us. fingers crossed. i am so stressed out between this, booking the redefine showcase, booking a tour… but it’s fine.

i am at the wall st. protests.

I am at the Wall St. protests. I am very steadfast and confident in the importance of what I am trying to do; however, because of the lack of people who seem motivated or inspired by defining actual tangible goals and pursuing solutions, it’s discouraging. It is so very discouraging. Whatever is the point? Earlier today I wrote up what I guess you could call a manifesto — of what I believe and the change I want to make, the role I want to play. Well, crud. I don’t know what shape that will take on necessarily, though I am trying to pass it on. There is one girl, Earth, who seemed very muh in favor and aligned with my interests — but other than that, everyone seems to think it is a good idea but not to the point where they are willing to take it up for themselves. I am less than stoked by this. How is it in a park of thousands of people, and different ones everyday, the majority of people are only inspired enough to make meaningless signs and spout rhetoric? Who are the people who actually want to make change? are they really so lacking in ability that no one realizes that organizations need to become involved with one another, that people’s skills and talents need to be directed to places outside of the confines of this park? It is entirely annoying, and as “frustrating” as capitalism can be, making signs about how rich people suck is — first of all, short-sighted and ignorant; second of all, just absolutely useless. What is a sign like the one that just passed by — “END THE FED” — going to do? Why is absolutely nobody interested in actually working to actively do anything? I hope Giovanni and Michael and co. take it over. I really hope that they do… and that because they are a group of individuals, that they will be able to find the flaws where I could not, and actually direct this flow of energy into a place that gets things done, that creates answers and solutions for goals that everyone can agree upon rather than those that people can only individually spout off about. FUCK.

summaries.

i’m listening to… colin stetson’s New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges — it’s crazy fucking saxophone music. pretty cool but this particular song is making me kind of crazy (one can only handle so much crazy ass saxophone music at once).

quick summary of the past couple days:

- robby just gave me a tape of denton bands that he made me for my birthday! i only write this first because it’s sitting right next to me.

- got a sxsw venue, it looks like, to throw a show for the first time ever. more details forthcoming, but if all things go as planned, it’s going to be pretty sick.

- got a couple new writers for redefine. heck yes.

- protested at an anti-abortion parade (puny, at 60 people), where people made signs and danced to a boom box (including ace of base). funny things related to that:
a) i went into planned parenthood to ask for a marker because i didn’t necessarily like what my sign said. i asked, “do you guys have a marker?” and the lady at the reception said no. then i asked, “can i borrow a pen, then?” and she’s like, “what are you doing, exactly?” and i told her we were there to support planned parenthood, and she’s like, “OH, OF COURSE I HAVE A MARKER!” and threw a sharpie at me. i lost the sharpie five minutes after going outside. i still don’t understand where the fuck it went… unreal…
b) there was a lady with a sign that said something like, “planned parenthood hurts blacks,” and i was like, “what the fuck? i need to know what this is about.” so i asked her, and she told me that three times more black babies are aborted than white babies… which, even if true, is hardly… proof… anyway, she said that planned parenthood hates blacks and that its founder (margaret sanger) hated black people and was racist and was trying to kill them all through abortion. she gave me a huge newspaper thing. you can search for stuff regarding it, but the websites are rather flawed and use hilarious logic, like, “Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide?” hilarity.
c) i went to a party at dan [s]‘s that night, and randomly started talking to this guy named nathan. nathan and i just started talking immediately about, “what did you do today?” even though i’d never met him before, and he told me about his day, and i told him about mine and said that i went to a pro-life rally to protest, and told him that the signs we made said, “honk if you’re pro-choice,” but i guess he had already assumed that i was pro-life or something, and was just like, “i don’t… really… agree with that politically.” and i was just thinking, “what? is he pro-life?” while at the same time he was like, “she’s pro-life?!! whattttt?!?!!” haha. really funny miscommunication…

- continuing on with the dance party, had a really good plan, and loosely made pals with rose’s best friend, and we are supposedly going to go to the salton sea when i go down to los angeles in july for wedding action. i hope it happens. I WANNA GO TO THE SALTON SEA, DAMMIT.

- after sxsw, i have a flight booked to fly back from albuquerque on march 31st. i will be leaving austin on march 21st, which gives 10 days. during these ten days, IF my prison penpal says that i’d be able to visit him on the 22nd, i will take a greyhound from austin to lawton, oklahoma, and visit him. this is the pricey route, but if he happens to be able to take visitors that day, i kind of have to… if he CAN’T take visitors that day, i’m probably going to ride with the brainstorm dudes to marfa, texas, and then they’re heading to los angeles, and i’ll probably stop off at las cruces and take a greyhound from las cruces to albuquerque cause that’d be wayyyyy more affordable.

- watched a pedro almodovar movie, “talk to her”. it was pretty excellent, and i found my spanish aural comprehension skills were pretty alright.

- just went to eat dinner with christian at the santeria, and we embarrassingly practiced speaking in spanish for almost all of the conversation, and i discovered that my spanish is really godamn bad, and that the santeria IS SO FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

- went to the beach for a day with jay and james. they’re taking off to go back to north carolina soon… the beginning of february, to be exact. they went to the party last night but i didn’t have too much of a chance to talk with them. mer… but yeah, the beach. we went to cannon beach, which was only 15 miles from where aaron and them are renting out a cabin in manzanita to record their next album, but unfortunately, since i wasn’t driving, i couldn’t get out there. which is kind of a bummer

- i am going to the forest tomorrow with rose and troy. yess! forest! and i’m going to make twice-baked potato with onion and cabbage, since i have a buncha leftover onions and potatoes… weird stuff.

- this morning i tried to make this weird ass dish for research club, but i’ve never worked with cottage cheese before. twas a little weird. i threw in a buncha oranges into cottage cheese and then put cucumber, and the cucumber totally ruined it. then i took the cucumber out and added a buncha chocolate to try and fix it, and it was not really fixed. though i just came back and tried it and it tastes WAY better now, so maybe it just had to sit for a bit!

- i was invited by tori to participate in an art show she is throwing at the end of the month. here is my description write-up to her (christian is going to help me do a sound clip):

Earlier this month, I did a day of blindness… it was remarkable in some ways, though I think a day is too long. But I think it’s something most everyone should experience. I have this crazy blindfold thing that blocks out light COMPLETELY. I want to give five-minute blindness “tours”, in which, in an ideal world, I will:

{1} Make up a t-shirt that says, “Follow me for a blindness tour.” to try and bring mall-goers to the gallery (ideally);

{2} Offer four separate tours… SCENT / SOUND / TASTE / TOUCH… I’ll bring all necessary sound samples and maybe try and attain permission from Body Shop to bring people in there if people choose SCENT;

{3} Collect money for donation to Guide Dogs For The Blind or Oregon Council Of The Blind or something else similar (need to do more research in the possibilities);

{4} Bring in a blind or sighted individuals from one of those organizations to talk to people and answer questions about blindness.

- fun conversation with shawn:

Me: “I have more leftovers than Jesus.”
Shawn: “Jesus is leftovers.”
Me: “That doesn’t even make sense.”
Shawn: “Yes, it does.”
Me: (thinking about it) “I guess you’re right.”
Shawn: “Jesus is bread.”
Me: “And Jesus came back from the dead!”

edit @ 3:47am:
after getting enraptured by music and going to bed with music blasting, i woke up a little bit ago. am talking to lenny right now and thought i would add an addendum that describes just what happened to me when i walked home today: i was walking home and i saw this guy turning the corner and i felt like there was something off but wasn’t sure what, and i walked closer and he was like jacking off with his penis through the hole, and i was just like, “what are you doing!” and he was just looking at me. and he was like same-aged (which is perhaps the most disturbing part). this is the second time i’ve been walking home from downtown and avoided any problems downtown but ran into problems in the “safer neighborhoods”. last time, some car was yelling at me from across the street, at a stop sign, and then i waved cause i’m a weirdo, and they pulled up next to me, and i was like, “what the fuck? no.” and kept walking and the guy in the passenger’s seat was just a dude that was texting, and they stopped for a sec, and drove off again. weird.

tolerance.

i keep thinking the level of tolerance my parents have for things that are different will change. it never does… IT NEVER DOES. IT NEVER DOES.

no matter how much they travel, everything just solidifies already-existing beliefs, i feel like. fuck. today i eavesdropped on my mom’s conversation with a friend and she was bad-mouthing the american government saying something about how if you never work a job in your life you will get free insurance but if you do then you have to pay a lot, and that’s why some black people don’t work. FUCK. and she’s essentially like, “might as well not work then! because you get screwed if you do work!”

FUCK. FRAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. i in my family is so weird. i mean, a lot of people fit in weirdly with their families. ugh. but it’s horrible.

i spent some time making them a present. basically, i have this book with 501 cool places to visit in the world, and i’m giving that to them. and i added little pieces of paper with stories from my trips to these various places… my brother was like, “they’re never going to read it.” and i’m like… “yeaaaaaaah. but i like to aim high and then be disappointed.” pretty accurate sentence — on both my part and on my brother’s. shit. i also included a dvd with photos, as an accompaniment to the book. meh. never gonna be read in conjunction. what’s. the. point. ugh. yesterday i told them their present would have to wait, because it was being made, and my mom scoff-laughed at me. so rude. i guess part of me does think that maybe i should just buy them something vapid, like a crystal, or a bouquet of flowers, or a sweater, because that’s what they’ll enjoy. i guess i give things i think people would appreciate because i would enjoy it. but that’s not the case, is it? hmmmm. rethinking is necessary. i guess the point of giving gifts is pleasing the end-user; therefore, i should maybe spend less time doing things i think are cool and more time figuring out things they think are cool… right? ugh.

the valley arena interview on redefine magazine. :}

3:00am

THE VALLEY ARENA BAND INTERVIEW

I haven’t done any band interviews in a while that I’m particularly proud of, because I haven’t written them up in a while or felt any kind of particular connection to any of the bands in a while. But today, the eve of my daughter’s wedding, I’ve finished an interview with The Valley Arena, and I like it, so you should read it. Big ups to Jason for helping me edit. I haven’t had anyone look at my own formal writing in a long time, so a second set of eyeballs is totally helpful.

///

In yesterday’s news, I watched Anthony’s favorite Seattle International Film Festival selection of this year, Welcome, which was about refugees who go to France and then try to smuggle into England. I wondered why they would want to go there, and after doing some research, came across this Guardian.co.uk article. I don’t know if this is still true, given the EU and all, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I should probably look and see what the updated rules are, but, according to that outdated article…

“First, unlike in France or Germany, refugees who reach Britain instantly acquire the effective status of asylum seeker. While they wait for their cases to be examined, a lengthy process that gives them every chance to disappear, they are housed and fed and given £35 a week, including £25 in vouchers to be exchanged in the shops.

Then, after six months in the country, they can apply for a work permit. But they can easily find work without a permit, because the black economy in Britain is worth some £80bn a year – four times the size of France’s. There is no penalty for an employer who hires an illegal immigrant. Ultimately, only one in 40 illegal immigrants to Britain is repatriated.

Better treatment aside, perhaps the most appealing aspect of life in Britain is its lack of that continental institution, the national identity card. In Britain, nobody has the right to ask you for your papers unless they suspect you of having committed an offence. You can live and work in Britain without the constant fear of a tap on the shoulder.”

\\\

funny quotes from wikipedia about waterboarding ~__~

As funny as they probably get, anyway.

The administration later denied that Cheney had confirmed the use of waterboarding, saying that U.S. officials do not talk publicly about interrogation techniques because they are classified. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said that Cheney was not referring to waterboarding, but only to a “dunk in the water”, prompting one reporter to ask, “So dunk in the water means, what, we have a pool now at Guantanamo and they go swimming?” Tony Snow replied, “You doing stand-up?”[102]

And an interesting video of a Playboy journalist trying out waterboarding for himself can be seen here:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1579920046?bctid=20047560001
(Because I personally didn’t know what waterboarding was EXACTLY, prior to watching this…)

prop 8 in california. passed? motherfuckers.

Passed by California voters as part of the 2008 General Election ballot, it added a provision to the constitution that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

I can’t believe that shit passed. FUCKING RIDICULOUS. I am so disappointed. And it passed by so much, too.

I am MORE disappointed because some of the people who vote against Prop 8 are people like my parents… people who claim they love and are Christian yet are just terrible motherfucking selfish human beings. A stretch? Maybe. I don’t think so, though. Are my parents terrible? Yeah, I’d say. On a global scale and on a scale beyond their immediate scope — beyond their family and their friends who are just like them, I think they are pretty damn terrible. And I am never to be such a bigot and never to be so close-minded. As of this moment, I have succeeded, but I hope I never fall back on such terrible judgments.

This Christmas — which also happens to be around my birthday, since my birthday is December 20th — my parents told me that I shouldn’t come home because they won’t be around. And why’s that? They will be going on a motherfucking CHARISMATIC CHRISTIAN CHURCH RETREAT. What the fuck!?! WHAT THE FUCK?! Gee, thanks, mom and dad, for not celebrating Christmas OR my birthday with me because you have to go to some crazy camp.

Last time I went home, I was like, “What the hell? You guys believe that crap?” when my mom told me that they were going to that retreat (over a lunch at a Chinese/Korean restaurant in Pleasanton that we always go to).

She said, “You just don’t understand.”

I said, “I do. I’ve been to those churches.”

As if this gave her some cred, my mom responded by saying, “I used to not believe it either, but then your dad and I went, and we felt God.”

MOTHERFUCKING FREAKS.

Is it ridiculous that a rant about Prop 8 passing turned into a rant about my parents and Christianity? Probably. Oh well, though.

obama.

One could have predicted Obama would have won, but I certainly would have never imagined how much he would have won by. Impressive.

The most exciting part, however, was being in downtown Portland as the 2008 Election results were being announced. We were on the MAX (or right about to get on it) when Dan first got the text message. Soon other people piled in on the MAX. One guy asked us, “Did Obama really win?” and we said, “Yeah. Exciting! Blah. Blah. Blah.”

Later, we passed by other MAX stops. At the first one, we heard groups of minority teenagers screaming for Obama. At the second one, a bunch of elderly white people were running to the MAX, smiling their fucking faces off. As soon as they got on, they started chanting and singing some weird song. They were on their way to the Convention Center, where some Obama party was going on. Weird crap. Blind Obama followers FOR THE LOSE. But it was cuter because they were old. Let’s just hope he really can make some fucking change.

This is written really terribly because Micah is harassing me while I am writing this ~__~

The fact that so many people were SO godamn happy about this election was really quite refreshing. The feeling in the air was like it was Christmas or something! I’ve never witnessed such excitement about voting, and I’m pretty sure most Americans my age have not. When we got to Cooperstown as the results were just being announced, the energy was insane. There were only a handful of people in the bar, but they were shouting, cheering, reveling in the great great victory. For once, it felt like everyone in a city was actually genuinely happy. Granted, it was fairly short lived, as later on that evening (maybe even like an hour later), people were decidedly less excited… but still.

I don’t know if Obama is the savior to all things like many Obama supporters believe. At this moment, it doesn’t really matter, though. He’s better than McCain. That IS what matters. It also matters that Americans finally elected a non-white man into office, and that alone is a symbol that perhaps we are not as idiotic as we 99% of the time seem. In fact, maybe on a global scale, we’ll actually become damn near respectable for once. Hopefully. Who knows. Let’s hope so