Artsy Fartsy Crap

Enough of that philosophical and political mumbo jumbo. It's time for some artsy fartsy crap! Here's a short play I wrote for the people at church. They performed it a few months ago to the questioning faces of tens of people at The Grove, a bi-weekly gathering of young adults at church; young adults who, I am afraid to admit, grow increasingly younger than I. The play is short - very short - so you don't have to worry too terribly much. It isn't Death of a Salesman or anything.

The play is entitled, "The Ghost" and, of course, it is copywritten by me (except for the parts I plagiarized from more talented authors).

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A young woman (Ann) walks into work. Her shoulders are slumped. She looks shy and even a little scared. Or maybe she is hiding something. Right next to her is another woman (Ghost), lavishly dressed, who looks as though she believes that she owns the world. There is a pompous and arrogant air about her, and though she believes al of existence is beneath her.

Ann sits at her desk to start her day. She doesn’t want to talk to anybody. Her coworkers mill about, talking about different things. The Ghost sits next to her with her feet up on the desk, her hands behind her head. The Ghost glares at Ann, who tries not to notice for a few seconds, before she turns to The Ghost in frustration and speaks.

Ann: (frustrated)WHAT!

Ghost: (sarcastically) Oh, nothing. It’s just that we rode all the way in today and you didn’t say anything nice about my new haircut.

Ann: Oh … it looks nice. (she turns back to her work, barely having looked at Ghost’s hair).

Ghost: And my new jacket? What about that?

Ann: (angrily, without looking at Ghost): It looks nice, too.

Ghost takes her feet off the desk and gives Ann a nasty look

Ghost: Well I’m glad I didn’t come to work dressed in this (she gestures towards what Ann is wearing). I swear. You look worse than usual today.

Ann lowers her head in shame.

Ghost (seeing that this hurts Ann, she leans in closer and speaks slowly, jeeringly) : If that’s even possible.

Ann lowers her head even more and sits at her desk. She doesn’t move. A co-worker, Brian, pops up and says hi. Brian is happy. He is on the edge of laughter. Ghost crosses her arms and sits closely to Ann.

Brian: Hey Ann, what’s goin’ on?

Ann (quickly composing herself) : Oh, hi Brian … nothing … I was just … umm … trying to … catch up on some sleep? (she laughs weakly)

Ghost: (mad) You’re a moron.

Brian (laughing): Don’t I know it! I was up late watching the game. Did you see it?

Ann: Oh, yeah! I saw it too. I was up till 3.

Brian: You did! So you saw…

Ann: In the bottom of the ninth inning …

Brian: When Griffey made that catch against the wall….

Brian and Ann together: …and threw the guy out at home plate.

They laugh together for a second, and then look at each other in silence for a second. Ann smiles. Brian smiles back. They stay this way for a second, then…

Ghost (still mad) : You disgust me. You’re pathetic.

Ann stiffens a bit and lowers her head, looking at the floor She is ashamed. .

Brian: There’s another game this weekend. We could go if you’re interested. I know this guy who works at the park … makes the best hotdog you’ve ever seen! Sound like fun?

Ghost: Oh please. Is HE asking YOU out? (she lets out mean laughter). He must be really desperate.

Brian: I have an extra ticket! …

Ann: Weeeelllll (considerding it, and leaning towards yes)…

Ghost gets right up next to Ann’s ear, speaking quickly and forcibly. As she speaks, Ann shrinks back further and further until she is looking straight at the floor.

Ghost: You can’t go out with him. You have other things to do. You have to clean your house. You have to call your parents. … And he’s not really interested in you. You’re too ugly…too stupid. He’s probably doing it on a dare. I bet his friends put him up to it. See those people laughing over there? That’s them, and they’re laughing at you! He’s not really interested! They hate you. They all hate you. You’re not worth it!

Ann (dejectedly, with her head down) : No … Sorry … I can’t.

Brian (surprised and confused) : Oh, ok. … well, see ya.

Ann: See ya.

Brian walks away shaking his head. Ghost relaxes and assumes a happier demeanor.

Ghost: Can you believe that guy? The nerve of him!

Ann gets up and starts to leave.

Ghost: (with much derision) Where are you going?

Ann stops in her tracks, turns around, and almost shouts.

Ann: Why did you do that? Why do you always do that?

Ghost: (sarcastically surprised) Why did I do what?

Ann: Why do you keep me from meeting people? Why do you keep me from enjoying life? Why do you always tell me that nobody likes me or could possible love me?…Why do you constantly tell me I’m worthless?

Ghost dons a wicked smile, pauses, then speaks.

Ghost: Because you are.

Ann is taken aback. She is shocked. She takes a second to compose herself.

Ann: Well … what if I tell you leave? What it if cut you out of my life? What then?

Ghost: This again? (She laughs) Well go ahead if you like. Give it a shot. See if it works. You’ve tried before, you know. And each time you come crawling back. Each time you’ve begged to come back. You might leave with promises of a new life, a life without me. But the truth is that you can’t live without me. The truth is that I’m right and you know it. I am the secret you tell no one. I’m the only one who loves you, the only one who accepts you as you are: a pathetic and worthless excuse for a woman. You can never leave me. So go ahead. Try if you want to. But take my word for it. You’ll be back.

Ann lowers her head again and starts to walk back towards Ghost. She has finally submitted to the truth she never wanted to believe: that the creature before her (and rest assured it is just that, a creature) is right. She can never leave. She will always bebeholden to it.

But just then another young man approaches from down the hallway. He is wearing white clothing (if we have a spot light, we should shine it on him, but I don’t think we’ll have one). Ann doesn’t recognize him, but Ghost starts to get a bit nervous.

Man: Hello, Ann, how are you?

Ann: (warily) : Fine … do I know you?

Man: Maybe. We’ve met a couple of times, but you probably don’t remember me.

Ann: Oh … I’m fine. How are you doing?

Man: I’m well. I’m well.

Ghost: (more nervous still) Don’t listen to him! He’s no good. He’s a bad man. Turn away from him and come back to me.

Ann (speaking to the man hurriedly) : Oh, that’s nice…well, have a nice day.

Ann turns to leave.

Man: Wait.

Ann starts to turn back.

Ghost: No!

Man: You haven’t introduced your friend.

Ann faces the man full on. She is shocked once again. And frightened.

Ann: My friend? What you do mean my friend?

Man: Yes. You’re friend sitting over there by the desk with the sour look on her face. What is its name?

Ann: You mean you can see her?

Man: Yes, dear. I can.

The Ghost comes up to Ann’s ear again and starts speaking into her ear like before. This time, she is frightened. Very frightened.

Ghost (quickly) : He’s lying. He’s trying to trick you. Don’t listen to him. Don’t even look at him. Come back to your desk with me and forget all about him. Come back with me and never think of this, this thing, again.

Ann doesn’t pay attention to the Ghost. She is intrigued by the Man. But she is still skeptical.

Ann: If you can see her, that means …

Man: That means I know your secret. I know the sin you hide in your heart like a locked treasure. I know you, fully and completely.

Ann: But how?

Man: Because you prayed to God for help and he sent me. I am an angel sent by the Lord to free you from your secret, to free you from your sin.

Ghost: What!? I thought I told you to stop that! I thought I told you that God never answered prayers! What have you been doing behind my back!

Angel: You see, my love? It doesn’t know all. It can’t see everything the way God does. All it can do is lie and hurt.

Ghost: Tell him to shut up! Tell him to go away, you maggot. Tell him you don’t want his help. Tell him you’re perfectly happy with your stupid life the way it is. Tell him to tell God to go to Hell!

Ann winces with every word from the Ghost. She can hardly stand it. When it finishes speaking, Ann holds her head as if she is in pain.

Angel: Would you like me to make it quiet?

Ann (looking hopefully): Yes, yes of course!

The Angel moves toward the Ghost

Angel: Then I will kill it.

As the Angel moves closer to Ann, she winces in pain yet again.

Ann: Watch out! You’re burning me … Stay away from me. Stop hurting me!

The Angel stops where he is.

Angel: Don’t you want me to silence it?

Ann: You didn’t say anything about killing? I didn’t want God to do anything as big as that!

Angel: Don’t you see, dear? It’s the only way. May I kill it?

Ann: But I can’t live without it. If you kill it, you will kill me along with it.

Angel (softly, like a parent speaking to a small child): No I won’t, dear. You have listened to lies. It’s time to stop that. God has heard your pleas. He loves you. He has always loved you. … Please, let me kill it.

Ann: Oh, but I can’t tell you to do that! Why are you doing this to me? Why didn’t you just kill it without asking? It would all be over by now if you had.

Angel: I can’t kill it without your permission. It is impossible … May I kill it?

The Angel moves closer to the Ghost. His hands are almost around her neck.

Ghost: ----tirade of swears at Ann---

As the Ghost’s insults fly faster and faster, Ann covers her ears and nearly doubles over in pain. She screams.

Ann: ALRIGHT!

The Ghost stops cold.

Ann: Alright. Do it and be done with it. (then, almost whimpering) God help me. God help me.

The Angel wrestles the Ghost to the ground and the Ghost snarls and bites back. He takes the Ghost into the shadows, where we cannot see them, and we hear the Ghost scream as she dies. Ann winces and doubles over in pain. The Angel comes back into the light by himself. He is smiling. He places a hand on Ann’s shoulder and she stands up.

Angel: It is done. Your sin is gone.

Ann looks around to verify that the Ghost is no longer with her. When she realizes the truth, she brightens. She stands up straight, smiling. She hugs the Angel who hugs her back.

Ann: Thank you. Thank you. Tell God how much I love him.

Angel: He knows, dear.

Ann looks around again

Ann: Is it really over?

Angel: Not, quite dear … Look.

Surrounding the stage are many different people, the people Ann works with every day. Each of them is engaged in their normal activities, but at each person’s ear is another Ghostt, spewing hatred and lies. They start off silent and motionless, then, one by one, each group begins talking and we see and hear the Ghosts above all else. The Ghosts vile threats and words of hatred fill the air. Then they are silent as the lights again show only Ann and The Angel.

Angel: Come, my dear. (he motions to the lost souls that surround them) There is much work to do.

More Truth

here's a quote from a poem I read recently.

"unexplainable truth? Sometime it sound like lies.
And unexplainable truth is visible to your eyes if you know what you’re looking for.
-muMs

It has nothing to do with my last post. I just thought it was neat.

Truth

A question for thokolosi:

In your last response to my response to somebody else’s response to my response to another person’s response, you said this:

“That aside, you posed a very interesting question about the independence of words from the speaker. In other words, "can a statement stand on its own outside the context of its speaker?"

If I were asked that question, my short answer would be "yes;" My long answer would be "yes, but..." Especially when the topic is politics, by which I am equally compelled and repulsed.

In politics and punditry, the speaker does color how I hear a message. Even in casual conversation, I think many people speak on multiple levels at the same time. So, I think it is reasonable to be more skeptical of a message from a source whose past statements you find disreputable.”

You are right! This is a good question. And I would like to address that in a post, if only in an attempt to move away from the ugliness in the last one.

So what is truth? Or, rather, do our words become less true when our character is lacking? I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why. I believe that truth exists separate from us. It is a standard against which our words, and even our very natures, are judged.

A popular theory among postmodernists is the idea that we make our own truth, that we can be polar opposites in all things and yet be equally true. The idea that we make our own truth is ludicrous, because if this were so then we have no standing by which to claim that historical atrocities are wrong. For instance, we could never say that Hitler was wrong to murder six million Jews (and countless others) because his truth was his truth and who are we to call it wrong? Right?

To put it another way, if one person claims that each person makes his own truth, then it is equally truthful for me to say that this person is always wrong. If he says that I am right and I say that he is always wrong, nothing makes sense.

Or, to put it a third way, two plus two equals four and it doesn’t equal anything else. If a person tries to tell you differently, they are either trying to be funny or they are hopelessly stupid.

There is such a thing as truth; otherwise we have no basis for thought and no means by which to improve ourselves as a race. If two scientists who differ in their opinions about the nature of physics are both right in their claims about a particular subject, then they are likely to share a hug and go home happy in the knowledge that they are each correct in their interpretation rather than argue with each other and work the problem through to the end. What is the point in innovation if there is no standard, no point at which you shout “eureka!” and claim the problem solved?

Truth exists. We see it all around us. It’s deciding what that truth is that causes all the problems. If each of us makes our own truth, then we will have none of it.

What you are talking about is, I think, our tendency towards miscommunication. I might speak the truth, but there are a million things that could make you interpret it differently than what I had intended. My past tendencies to lie or not take things seriously could result in skepticism in my audience. My inflections of voice could lead you to believe that I stated a question as opposed to a declaration. I could speak in long, complex sentences and you could be an idiot; in which case you’d have no idea what I was saying.

This is often the case when I listen to others speak. They use big words and I get confused. Because, when you get right down to it, I’m a complete moron.

If, however, my statements stand up to the rigors of investigation and critical analysis, then they must be accepted as truth regardless of my character. Because, as I believe I have shown, truth is not created by the person who speaks it. It can be sought after. It can be misinterpreted. It can even be approximated. But once it has been proven, it exists, and no amount of baseless character attacks is going to make this not so.

Your thoughts?

Politics Drive Me Insane

Deleted by author

Ohio Goes For The Gold!

What Time Is It Again?

The United States government, fearing that too many students are finally grasping the age old "If a train leaves New York at 50 miles per hour..." question, has adopted a provision to extend Daylight Savings time.

"It would mean people would turn their clocks forward one hour on the first weekend of March and "fall back" on the final weekend in November. Currently in Canada and the U.S., daylight time runs from April through October. The exception in Canada is Saskatchewan, which keeps its clocks the same throughout the year."

I wish we could just keep it the same year round. It's not like it matters anymore. I'm just glad I don't live in Indiana, where some counties honor the time switch and some do not. Just imagine thinking to yourself, "I have to be at work at 8am, but since they're an hour behind me, I can sleep in. Unless, if course, I want to get gas along the way, then I have to wake up at 8:00 my time, leave the house quickly, run to the gas station, and make it in by 8:00."

You shouldn't have to do math to tell time.

A Long day and some guy named Dude

I’ve been at work for thirteen hours. My brain has turned to mush and I can no longer comprehend common grammar and simple mathematics. I feel like somebody went into one of the tech closets on my floor and turned up the gravity a notch or two, and when I stand up everything slips and slides like when you’ve taken way too much acid.

Not that I know anything about that or anything. I’ve read enough Hunter S. Thompson to understand the concept.

I hate working late. But it’s not the fact that I’ve had to work late that has me in such a state. It’s the fact that my boss is a moron. Here’s how it all breaks down. I got a request this morning o review an airport in some farr off place nobody would ever want to go, because for some reason somebody wanted to go there and they wanted to go there right now! The problem was that the airport my boss asked me to review doesn’t exist. It just isn’t there. It would be like trying to find Lyonesse. It may have existed at one point, but it ain’t there now so good luck finding it!

So I spent a good hour and a half this morning looking for references to this airport in all different types of trade magazines in Indonesia (because that’s where the airport supposedly is…right next to Atlantis), when I cam across a different airport in the same city. I was intrigued. So I checked out the stats of this new airport and became increasingly more convinced that it was this airport our valued customers wanted to go, not the one that sank into the sea a thousand years ago.

So I e-mailed my boss and informed him of my find. In this e-mail I informed my boss and his team that I would await their response to do an official review. Two minutes later somebody from a separate department copied my e-mail word for word and e-mailed my boss again. I don’t know why. This was around 10:00 am.

Lunch came and went. At 2:15pm, I received an e-mail from one of my bosses minions, asking me how things were going with that airport review.

“They’re not,” I said. “Because (*edited to protect the innocent*) hasn’t told me which airport to review.”

“Oh, he didn’t? Well we knew that a long time ago,” he said.

“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you ask,” he said.

“I did,” I responded as I gripped the phone with white knuckles. “Here, let me forward the e-mail I sent this morning at 9:30.”

He received the e-mail and was surprised. “(*expletive deleted*)! I’ll have (*BOSS*) e-mail you back with the correct name in a minute.”

“Why don’t you just,” I began, but it was too late. He’d hung up. I was going to ask him why he didn’t just tell me which airport to review, because that would have made sense. Alas, logic is a state of mind to which few aspire.

Thirty minutes later I got an e-mail from my boss asking me how the review was going. I told him that I hadn’t done anything because I still had not been told which airport to review. He asked me why I hadn’t been told. Let me repeat that. He asked me why I hadn’t been told. For those of you who also cannot grasp the simplicities of normal human conversation, this means that my boss just asked me to tell him why he hadn’t done something. That is like asking your mother why you haven’t cleaned your room and expecting her not to smack you across the face for your stupidity.

Unfortunately, I would be fired if I attacked my boss. So I couldn’t do that.

The good news is that we got it all worked out and I was able to determine which airport to review a full 6 hours after they had sent the request. I called the airport. It was closed. This makes sense since it’s in Middleofnowhere, Indonesia and nobody ever wants to go there.

So I called my boss again and informed him of the latest developments.

“Why are they closed?” he asked me.

I wanted to tell him that if I knew the answer to that, I’d probably make a lot more money than I do now, and I wouldn’t have to work for him. Instead, I said, “I don’t know, but the open again at 0100 Zulu Time.” Zulu time is Greenwhich mean time, which means that they open at 10:00pm our time.

“Well that’s great,” he said. “You can stay late and call them back then.”

The sad part of this whole endeavor is that, if he had responded to my e-mail when I first asked him, I would have completed the airport review hours ago and everybody would be happy. Instead, I had to stay four hours late (after already having worked 10) just to ask some random Dude if we could park out plane on his lot.
Incidentally, the guy with whom I have to speak is named Dude. Seriously. His name is Dude. Weird, huh?

To add even more woe to the situation, I am not allowed to do more than three airport reviews in a day because the person who reviews my work can’t keep up. I finished the other two around noon. So I’ve been sitting here for 9 hours pretending to work while waiting for Dude to call me back.

Where the hell did I go wrong in life?

can't sleep

You know what's funny? It is now 3:00 am and I can't sleep. I've been tossing and turning all night long and, after trying to avoid it, have finally settled into the belief that I will be up all night surfing the internet and trying to read from the two books in which I am currently enthralled: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. It's a good thing there aren't any wizards named Alyosha at Hogwarts, or else I'd be thoroughly confused.

Not that I have everything together, mind you.

"Fountains of Wayne" currently blares through my speakers as I type. It's the song "Mexican Wine," which is a lot better than that "Stacey's Mom" song. But, I think, given the context of the album as a whole, the idea of "Stacey's Mom" makes a lot more sense and is even quite enjoyable. The band has a quirky sense of humor that is completely lost when you take individual songs and try to sell them to the public. My favorite song on the album is track two, which is a happy little ditty about an alcoholic who keeps promising to overcome his problems, right before he goes on another bender. The corus goes "I'm gonna get my shit together/Cuz I can't live like this forever. /I've come to far and I don't wanna fail / I got a new computer and a bright future in sales, yeah yeah."

Then you have the song about a high school kid singing about how hot his girlfriend's mother is. It might not make sense to you now, but trust me. Listen to the album and it will make sense. I promise.

Well now! It seems that, since I'm up late and since the docet tones of the Fountains of Wayne have bathed my room in a melancholic mood, I am of a mind to discuss employment concerns.

You see, my job is not quite as exciting as I had previously thought it to be. I don't hate it or anything and the people are nice (even the guy who argued idiotically about the athletic prowess of Jason Bay), but I find that I spend the majority of my time glancing at the clock, calculating the minutes and seconds until I get to leave.

I was cleaning my room the other day, and I came across two interesting pieces of paper. The first was my final paper for my management capstone class from my last quarter of college. It wa a bulky 35 pages and it contained all sorts of grpahs and numbers and long winded explanations about foreign entry strategies and economies of scale and that sort of thing. The other was the paper explaining the results of the GMAT test I took less than two months after graduation.

The paper was an interesting experience. It was an analysis of a fake game we played in class. We had split into groups of five, and each group was pitted in competitiion with the other in a computerized game in which we had to control a shoe company from top to bottom. We had to control the supply chain: purchaing materials, shipping materials to manufacturing plants, assembly, and distribution. We had to manage marketing, finance, technology, and everything else your average shoe company had to deal with. Each week counted as a year in the computer program and at the end of the week, we submitted out plans to the professor, who ran them through the computer and returned a 22 page financial summary of the results to each team.

Naturally, my team came in dead last place. But what was interesting about the experience was that I spent 35 pages explaining why we had been such an outstnading failure. I thoroughly enjoyed ripping my team to shreds. And I especially enjoyed proposing how we could have performed much better. The professor agreed and kept my paper as an example for future classes.

The GMAT test paper was also fun to see. You see, I didn't really study for it. Sure, I bought a revoew book and I even looked at it once or twice; usually while I was watching The Daily Show or falling asleep to a move on HBO at 4am. I never figured on going to grad school anyway, despite the fact that I had the sufficient gpa and experience. I took the test and scored very well. I scored in the top 5 percent on the analytical test and I rocked a perfect score on the written section, proving once and for all that the ability to bullshit counts much more than real knowledge in our warped society.

The expereince of finding each of these papers lead me to investigate grad programs at OSU again. They have a PhD program at the Fisher college of Business in International Strategic Management. I think I meet the minimum requirements, and my current job deals with business in countries all over the world (the boring part is that I do the same thing over and over and over and over...and over).

I think I'm going to apply for admission to this program for Autumn 2006. I might not be suited for the halls of academia, but I know I'm not suited for cubicle life and I figure that a life of lecturing to a classroom full of bored undergrads is probably better than staring at the clock for a living.

Wish me luck! We won't find out for a while, but I figure that, regardless of the outcome, it will at least be a reason to go out to a local bar, order a glass of Woodford Reserve and smoke a stogie the size of Alabama.

And I'm always looking for a reason to do that! I'm finally gonna get my stuff together! Cuz I can't live like this forever! I've come too far and I don't want to fail!

I've got a new computer and a bright future in sales!

Waiting in Line

As I stood in line at Subway this afternoon, watching a lady order fifteen sandwiches for her co-workers while my lunch hour ticked away, I thought to myself, “Jean-Paul Sartre was right. Hell really is other people.”

Then I got to thinking some more (because I had a lot of time on my hands).

If things seem crowded here, I wonder what they’re like in Beijing (Peking) or Calcutta (Kolkata). Those places are jam packed with people and I imagine that a 45 minute wait for a sub sandwich is a luxury few people in that part of the world ever enjoy. Also, you have to consider the sheer number of people over there. Even if you’re a one in a million type of guy, there are still several thousand others just like you running around nearby.

Then I got to thinking about how difficult it would be to make a difference in that part of the world. You could go to school and study real hard, and to get a good job that allowed you creative freedom, chances are 1000 to 1 against you getting a job instead of one of the clones of yourself I just mentioned a minute ago. The same goes for finding a nice house or getting a girlfriend. There may very well be other fish in the sea, but with so many others just like the one you threw back, what’s the point of even trying? That must be depressing, knowing that happiness and success are dependent upon dumb luck or a happy turn of Fate.

Maybe the answer is to move to Montana, where you can stand in a field and scream obscenities until your head turns blue and nobody will give a damn. Try doing that in your local mall.

Or at a Subway restaurant, directed at that crazy lady and her hungry co-workers.

Of course, there is the possibility that Sartre was wrong. Maybe his particular type of Hell has degrees of severity that vary according to certain fluctuating characteristics. For instance, if you are in a crowd of, say, 32,000 of your closest friends watching fireworks explode over a ballpark as your favorite team wins the big game, that might not be a definition of Hell despite the proximity of other people. Next, try standing in a room with Gilbert Godfried after he has taken an extra large dose of speed and mescaline and tell me that you don’t understand the depths of human depravity.

So maybe Hell is other people in certain situations and in proximity pursuant to your ability to get away once you have noticed the existence of said state. Yeah, that sounds a bit more like the truth, but it isn’t catchy and I doubt Sartre would have said it like that.

He was French, after all, and the French have a mind for catchy things.

Maybe he just dumbed down his definition in order to sell books. But if he did this, it take away from his credibility as a philosopher. Aren’t philosophers supposed to be seekers of truth and not merely seekers of money? Is Sartre not who I previously thought him to be? Is he guilty of mere Sophistry in the face of one of the least interesting questions man has ever sought to comprehend?

Who knows? Certainly not me. And by the time I had come to the beginning of the questions behind the question that first caught my fancy, the lady in front of me had left. So I stepped forward and ordered a chicken and bacon ranch on wheat with lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. I wished to have my sandwich on a Parmesan Oregano bread loaf.

“We’re out of that,” the sixteen year old Subway employee said as she popped her bubble gum and stood there with her mouth open.

No, Sartre was right. Hell is other people.

Happy Bastille Day!

Let's all grab a torch and storm the castle! Viva! La Revolucanization!

Racism in sports or an inability to comprehend statistics? You decide!

I got into an argument with a lady at work this afternoon about the racial makeup of players in the Major League Baseball All Star game. She came to work mad this morning because Jason Bay, a left fielder for the Pittsburgh pirates, did not play in last night’s All Star game. Jason Bay was the only Canadian on either team and he was the only person who didn’t play.

“I can’t believe it!” she said. “There’s an anti-Canadian bias in major league baseball.”

Now I agreed with her up to a point. Jason Bay should have played. He is a good, young player and it was his first of what will hopefully be many All Star appearances. But I had to say something. Because she was just being stupid. “I don’t think it was that he was Canadian,” I said. “I think it was because he sucks.”

This incited a flurry of discussion at work. Several people thought it was clearly an example of racism, but I would not relent. I informed them that Major League Baseball has a rule which requires at least one representative from each team to be a part of the All Star team. It only stands to reason that good teams, like the Red Sox and the Cardinals, will have several players on the All Star team while crappy teams, like the Reds and the Pirates, will not. I argued further, saying that Jason Bay, while he is a good player in his own right, is not quite All Star caliber. Since the National League was behind and had hoped to make a comeback, they wanted to use their good players.

“No hold on just a minute,” she said. “That guy from the Reds got to play.”

“Yeah,” said another guy (who is a closet Pirates fan), “and he puts up the same numbers as Jason Bay.” He went on to add, “How you like that, bitch!?” Everybody in the office looked at me and I smiled calmly. You see, I have this personal rule about ass kicking. If you ask for it, then I have to give it to you.

“You betray your ignorance,” I began. “All star caliber is not judged by offensive statistics alone, and neither is it judged in comparison to the league as a whole. What you have to do is look at a player’s performance in comparison to
other players at his position. Let us compare Jason Bay to other outfielders in the National League. Then let us compare Felipe Lopez to other shortstops. Once we are finished, I believe you will understand why one rode the bench while the other shined under the spotlights.”

“Jason Bay’s stats for the 2005 season through the All star Break:
BA---R--H--2b--3b--HR--RBI--Sb
.299-59-98--25--4--16--44----5

While his performance has been good, these numbers are not stellar when you compare them to other outfielders in the national league. Jason rarely breaks the top 10 in any offensive category, coming as high as 6th for batting average. In many categories, he is well behind other outfielders who did not make the All Star team. For instance, in batting average, his .299 puts him behind Jose Guillen, who did not make the All Star Team despite the fact that he has more homeruns, more RBI, more runs scored to add to his dominance in batting average. Outfielders tend to be power players but Jason Bay, despite the fact that he bats 3rd in the Pirates lineup, isn’t even in the top ten among national league outfielders in Runs, RBI, or HR’s. In homeruns, everybody’s favorite category, Jason ranks 12th among national league outfielders. He is behind Adam Dunn (23) Cliff Floyd (22), Reggie Sanders (18), Ken Griffey jr (17) and Patt Burell (17); none of whom made the All Star team. This could be forgiven if he had speed, but he only has 5 stolen bases and his slugging percentage is a woeful .546. Jason Bay is a good player and he will improve, but at the moment, he is only slightly above average as far as outfielders go.

Felipe Lopez’s stats for the 200 season through the All Star Break:
BA---R--H--2b--3b--HR--RBI--SB
.304-49--90--18--2--14--48--6

The thing to consider when looking at Lopez’s stats is that he wasn’t even a member of the team at the beginning of the season. He started the year in the minor’s came up in mid-April when Anderson Machado injured his heel, and didn’t start at ss until mid May. Add to this the fact that Lopez usually either leads off or bats second, and it is amazing that his numbers are virtually the same as Jason Bay’s. Like I said earlier, however, the important thing is to compare him to other shortstops. So how does he compare? Well, among national league shortstops, Lopez is first in homeruns, first in RBI, and second in batting average (Omar Visquel is ahead by one point at .305). Even in comparison to other All Star shortstops, Lopez dominates. Omar Visquel is ahead in average, but has only 1 homerun and 30 RBI. David Eckstein has 2 homeruns, 24 RBI, and is batting .287. Lopez is also third among shortstops in OBP (slightly behind Eckstein and Visquel). Felipe Lopez is the preeminent offensive shortstop in the national league this season and he would have been chosen regardless of how many players the Reds had on the team. “

I stopped speaking and took a minute to bask in the glow of my own magnificence. The Canadian glared at me and said, “it doesn’t matter. They still discriminated.”

Some people are just idiots, I guess.

Let's make the Supreme Court fun again

I've got an idea. Why don't we nominate this guy for Supreme Court!

Notes on Stuff

Originally, I posted a single tidbit of information here, and I would have left it at that had I not thought of a few other interesting things to say. So instead of just one bit of pointless fun you get several pieces of useless information to make your day that much better.

Lucky you.

1. Today, while playing frisbee golf, I heard Jim (from dilatoryaction) say, "That's good, because I've been looking for a reason to reanimate Irving Berlin's dead corpse!"
2. I finished my most recent play for the Grove Drama team this afternoon. It's a play about a young, Christian woman who accidentally gets pregnant. In it, there is a Nazi schoolteacher who screams at children in school to learn the four baisc (and completely incorrect) facts about sex; there is a boyfriend who dresses like a '70s pimp, and when he speaks you hear Barry White Music in the background; there is a parental figure who threatens to beat his daughter's head in with a baseball bat; there are audience members who scream at the characters on stage; and there is a baby - a real, live baby. It wraps up in a nice and tidy 30 minute segment where almost all the problems are solved and everybody goes home happy, just like in sitcoms and in Real Life. I called it "Strange Love - or - How I learned to stop worrying and accept my mistakes." I suddenly feel bad about calling it that, because I don't like blatant ripoffs of popular (and good) movies, especially since it is my belief that Kubrick will one day come back from the grave and show his detractors the errors of their ways before their lives are over. Oh crap! I just ripped off Charles Dickens! Now I'm really screwed.
   
3. I just drank 5 cans of Diet Mountain Dew!
4. This morning, while playing frisbee golf (Jim wasn't there for this one...I'm not addicted to frisbee golf. I can quit whenever I want), I went to grab my frisbee and stepped on a bee's nest. At first, I thought I had stepped into a thornbush. Then the increased number of stings coupled with the incessant buzzing informed me of the truth. I ran from the woods, screaming like a little girl, then ripped my shirt off and swore profusely (taking the Lord's name in vain on many occasions). Yes, I would have laughed at me, too.
   
5. Today is Monday and I am off work again!
6. No, I don't plan to do a long bit of info followed by a short one and yet another long one.
   
7. I'm cooler than that, dady-o.
   
8. Did I just say "dady-o"?
9. Harry Potter comes out this Saturday and I am excited. I am not as excited as I was to see the last three books in the Dark Tower series come to fruition, however, because in this instance, the author has not been run over by an aimless drunk and is therefore not as likely to die before the series ends. It is interesting to note that there are several Harry Potter references in The Dark Tower series.
   
10. It is also interesting to note that I am a huge nerd.
    
11. Remember that play I mentioned earlier? Well it turns out that I'm in the play! I had originally written the part for my good buddy Tim, but then he went and got his wife pregnant and now he doesn't have the time. So I have to take over the part because there aren't any other old and intimidating people in the young adult crowd. That's what I get for being fat and bald, I guess.
    
12. This Thursday is Bastille Day! So, in the immortal words of Billy Crystal, "Au revoir gosses. Ayez l'amusement donner l' assaut à le château!"

Alright. That is enough.

Harry Potter and the Existential Dilemma

I wrote another article for the young adult church information thingy! Wanna read it? Here it is...

Harry Potter and the Existential Dilemma

A few years ago, I walked into my local Barnes and Noble store to pick up the latest Stephen King tome and had to wait in line behind a group of college kids dressed in capes and horn-rimmed glasses. They were discussing the particulars of something called quidditch.

I thought it was a disease or possibly some sort of viral infection. “Quidditch,” I said. “I had that once. It was horrible. I was out of school for almost a week!” The college students were quick to point out that quidditch was not a disease, but was rather a game one played while flying on a broomstick.

“You have to shoot the quaffle through the hoop,” one of them said.

“Yes, and of course you have to watch that the Bludgers don’t knock you off your broom in the process,” another said.

“Of course,” I said, completely confused.

“Then there’s the snitch,” the first student began. “That’s what Harry’s looking for.”

“Who’s that,” I asked. They looked at me like I was an idiot, and then spent the remainder of our time together telling me about a place called Hogwarts and some evil guy with a French sounding name (which, by the way, I wasn’t supposed to say). Before I knew it, they had added the first of the Harry Potter books to my collection and made me promise that I would read it from cover to cover as soon as possible.

“You’d better,” they said, “Or we’ll sick Hagrid on you.”

“Is that some kind of dog,” I asked, joking. They laughed at me even more.

Later that evening, I got home and checked online to see what other people had to say about Mr. Potter and his exploits in the wizarding world. I can be oblivious to pop culture sometimes and I wanted to investigate this new fad that I had apparently missed.

I also wanted to make sure that Ben Afleck was not involved. Because I hate Ben Afleck.

Along with the usual fan sites, I found several places dedicated to the condemnation of the entire Potter series. They said it was anti-Christian. These sites claimed that the series glorifies the occult and ensures a first class seat on a high speed train straight to Hell for anybody who gets within spitting distance of the accursed books. They had even less kind things to say about the author, J.K. Rowling.

According to several “high quality” websites, I should have taken the new book outside and burnt it. But, I figured, since I had gone to the store with the intention of purchasing a Stephen King book, any shot at piety I may have had went out the window long ago.

That’s the funny thing about Christian culture. Some people believe that certain aspects of life are completely worthless if these things are not explicitly religious. For instance, one of my friends complains that he can’t listen to a lot of secular bands, even those with a positive message, because they don’t specifically mention God. And he outright refuses to consider bands which are obviously talented but aren’t Christian. He often laments this loss, he says, because there are so many good bands out there he would love to listen to.

Another friend of mine confessed that, at one point in her life, she would only watch movies that had a Christian message. She wouldn’t even watch G-rated films unless they mentioned Jesus Christ specifically and even then there were several possibilities for a disqualifying factor.

I don’t understand this sentiment. God has called us to be more completely human and I have always believed that part of this means that we have the ability to think; to discern what is good and what is not, at least to some extent. Anybody who has read the Harry Potter series knows that it does not glorify the occult as an essential and everyday aspect of life anymore than C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia claims that the way to salvation is through a dusty closet or that Jesus is an actual, physical lion.

What the Harry Potter series does is recognize the equality of worth in all human beings, regardless of their background. It emphasizes the importance of making good choices, and how these choices can affect our lives. It even states that the difference between good and evil, on an individual level, is often a choice between doing what is right and doing what is easy.

If Christians can’t get behind that message, then we need to re-evaluate what we believe.

When I see Christians criticize predominantly secular aspects of our culture for not being Christian, I cringe. Why do they do that? Secular means non-religious, not devoid of value or even separated from God, right? One of the most common reasons for unbelief I hear is that Christianity doesn’t seem real. To many, Christianity is nothing but a bunch of rules we can’t possibly live up to.

I believe that this comes from that fact that so many Christians reject secular aspects of life to the point that they define themselves through separation. It often gets to the point where it would seem that non-believers must reach out to God rather than the other way around..

Many non-believers see Christians who claim that a particular book, cd, or movie should be flatly ignored on the basis that it doesn’t have Jesus’ name in the title and they give up on faith. They don’t understand. They see nothing but rules. To them, there is no point in faith. They don’t see the other side of it. They don’t see the joy and freedom that comes with following Christ.

The truth of the matter is that God created us with the ability to understand love and happiness and beauty and many other aesthetics. These are often the way people come to understand what it means to believe in God. The Christian philosopher, C.S. Lewis, wrote at length about the logic and philosophy of Christianity. However, what threw him over the edge, so the speak, was the joy he experienced while riding to the zoo on a motorcycle with his brother. “When we set out,” he said. “I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and when we reached the zoo I did.”

This learned man, this philosopher, knew the logical aspect of the truth of Christianity, but what ultimately brought him to faith was the joy he experienced while engaged in an activity that was inherently secular.

The reason for this is that humans are wired to understand Joy because God, the source of all Joy, made us that way. We were designed for the world and the world was designed for us. And if we, as Christians, can find joy and happiness and beauty in the world God has created for us, it stands to reason that non-believers can as well. If we, as Christians, can be moved to express this joy through art or literature or some other creative endeavor, it stands to reason that non-believers can too.

And here is yet another way we can reach out to non-believers. We can show that all humans understand goodness and beauty and happiness because all cultures, Christian and non-Christian alike, can express that Joy with equal vigor. We can show that this truth is something that exists separate from ourselves, and that this separate truth points us to God.

So when the next Harry Potter book is released, I will purchase it and I will read it. Because the books are well written, they have a good message, and I get great Joy from reading them. I highly suggest that, if you have the time, you do the same.

Now that Stephen King book I bought? That is a completely different story altogether.

...and I'm sorry Mr. Jones. It's. Time.

Sometimes I feel like I’m going to end up like Fred Jones. Today especially.

Binary

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

I am lame.

New York Times violates its own code to cheap shot Peter Jackson

In a recent article in the New York Times:

"A litigator for New Line, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is working on this lawsuit, said the money paid to Mr. Jackson so far is in line with the contract he signed. 'Peter Jackson is an incredible filmmaker who did the impossible on 'Lord of the Rings,' this lawyer said. 'But there's a certain piggishness involved here. New Line already gave him enough money to rebuild Baghdad, but it's still not enough for him.'"

From the NYT's Policy on Confidential News Sources:

"We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as cover for a personal or partisan attack. If pejorative opinions are worth reporting and cannot be specifically attributed, they may be paraphrased or described after thorough discussion between writer and editor. The vivid language of direct quotation confers an unfair advantage on a speaker or writer who hides behind the newspaper, and turns of phrase are valueless to a reader who cannot assess the source."

It's nice to know they have scruples, isn't it?

Revolution and Killian's Irish Red

I went to dinner with Laurie this evening after work. We met her friend Sarah for drinks afterwards and in the process of a three hour conversation, which ranged in topic from the effects on human equilibrium of excessive inebriation coupled with a boat ride in choppy waters to the need for individual fiscal conservatism in the face of rising credit card debt following a sudden drop in employment, I consumed five or six bottles of that sweet divine nectar, Killian’s Irish Red. Laurie and Sarah went off to watch “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” and I, claiming to exercise a bit of my own fiscal conservatism, called it an early night.

Try as I might, I just can’t get excited about that movie. Angelina Jolie may break the Guiness Record for “hotness,” but her past exploits with Billy Bob have tainted her in my mind.

I could not go directly home, however, since my state of inebriation was such that I would have violated several local ordinances involving my ability to safely operate a motor vehicle had I chosen to venture forth onto the streets of Columbus. So I waltzed over to Barnes and Noble to see what I could see.

I have tried to avoid doing such a thing sine I made the pact with myself this past March to avoid purchasing any books until I have finished everything on my shelf; excluding, of course, the new Harry Potter Book, which is due out in July, and that Anansi Boys book from Neil Gaiman, which is due out sometime in early September.

I’ve been reading a lot of heavy material lately. Leave me my cupcake books for now. Besides, you’d be interested, too, if you had taken the time to read American Gods and Neverwhere like I told you.

This time I couldn’t help myself, so, in order to avoid spending money, I wandered into the biography section. Lo and behold, there stood before me a display on the Cuban Revolutionary and Latin American Icon, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara

I have always been intrigued by Ché’s life. He started out an aristocratic son of a wealthy Argentinean and an Irish immigrant, went to medical school, and then rejected his privileged upbringing after a trip with his friend and fellow doctor, Alberto Granado, which resulted in the book (now a major motion picture starring that guy from "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and a relatively unknown actor who is a distant relative of Che's) The Motorcycle Diaries. It was this book I picked up and began to read. It has been on my list for some time, much to the chagrin of my friends. They believe that a socialist can have nothing good to say. They believe that a person’s theory on politics and economics defines him in a way that other opinions cannot.

Then they trumpet the works of Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn as exemplary of the right kind of anti-Communism. Little do they know that Aleksandr believed in Socialism and Communism; he just hated Stalin and the gulags. He believed that evil could exist anywhere, under any political or social theory. And I agree.

Back to Ché.

My roommate speaks harshly of the man, and rightly so. He knows several people who were tortured by Guevara during the Cuban revolution and their stories haunt him. Rest assured that I, too, believe their stories and I do not hold the man in high regard , despite his mythical status among many from my generation.

In his later works, such as “Back on the Road” and a little later in “Guerilla Warfare,” the good doctor (and he was a medical doctor) expounds on theories of warfare and worldwide social change with a fervor on par with that of Marx and Hegel in their seminal works. But in The Motorcycle Diaries, when he is still just a child experiencing the world for the first time, he expresses mostly love for his people and an open heart for real change that will bring hope and a new life to the downtrodden.

This is the motivation of Socialism and Communism that I like. Kurt Vonnegut expresses it well when he says that Western nations, which are largely Christian, have forgotten the words of Jesus Christ who, in the beatitudes, says “blessed are the poor” and “blessed are the meek.” This attitude that things should be different and somehow better is something that I believe is lacking in American and, to a greater extent, Western politics and society. It's lacking in a big way.

It’s in the application where the radical leftists fail. In my opinion.

As I read the first few chapters of The Motorcycle Diaries, I got the impression not of the man who would one day lead Castro’s troops against Batista on the streets of Santa Clara and who would later execute Eutimio Guerra, a suspected Batista supported, with a single shot to the head, but of a young doctor with a soul and a spirit that was born to heal the world, not break it further apart by attempting to create "many Viet Nams," and establish a Mao-ist form of soul crushing Communism.

The most telling aspect of this was the collection of photographs that accompanied the book. All of the photos except one were of the young Ernesto, before he laid down his identity as a doctor and become Ché. He was full of smiles and hope. I saw him atop the great motorcycle, La Ponderosa, with a determined look on his face. I saw him standing on his raft as he and Alberto sailed the Amazon. I saw the smiling faces of the children who inhabited the Peruvian leper colony wher he volunteered.

He and his friend were the only two doctors in the leper camp who refused to wear protective gear while treating the inhabitants. When Alberto went back to visit the camp in 2004, at the spry age of 82, several of the men and women there remembered him. They asked him about his friend, the other young doctor who had risked everything to make their lives a little bit better.

They spoke of Ernesto Guevara. They did not know him as Ché. They did not know him as a Communist revolutionary and a madman who once said that, had he been in charge during the Cuban missile crisis, he would have fired without hesitation. He would have enacted a nuclear holocaust without blinking an eye. He welcomed it.

Yes, all the photos in the book showed Ernesto Guevara as a young man full of good potential, save one. The very last photo showed him several years later, dressed in military garb, his face weathered by the constant stream of Cuban cigars and the scars of warfare. The price of the revolution.

The difference in mood was striking. You could see the insanity painted on his face in wide strokes. You could see that, where innocence and hope once held court, madness and hatred now reigned supreme. He was hungry for vengeance of any kind and at any cost.

I have often wondered about Ché Guevara and others like him; people who start off with great intentions only to find themselves on the fast road to Hell; people who accept their path with glee because they cannot conceive of a truth different from the lies they have spent a lifetime preaching as gospel; people who are lost.

I have often wondered about Ché Guevara because in those first few chapters and those first few photographs, I see myself. I see in his eyes the painful recognition of a world in dire need. I see that overwhelming fear and knowledge that I and others like me have benefited while the rest of the world has faced immense suffering. I see the hatred engendered by that unfairness. And I recognize, in his young face, that aching need to make things better that weighs heavy on the soul. I look at his picture and I see cameraderie.

Then I turn the page and I see the madman. And I wonder what happened.

A Day in the Life of The Sasquatch

I wrote this at work the other day, when things were slow. In case you can't tell, I'm attempting to fill up my blog with stuff I've already written.

I will have you know that I, like Jack Kerouac and Ed Wood, do not believe in second takes. What comes out first is the final product. So if you notice a spelling mistake or an error in grammar and you feel like mentioning it to me, I would like to kindly invite you to enter into an anatomically correct sexual position with yourself. Because as far as I'm concerned, that is something you can go and do.

However, if spelling and grammar are not your thing, you're in the right place moron!

********************************************

7:24am – peeling the eyes open

Today is a slow day at work, so I plan to comment on things as they happen and post them up here, possibly for comedic enjoyment. Failing that, however, this will serve to pass the time until the magic hour arrives and I can leave this foul place. I remember just yesterday when I lauded the advantages of switching to an earlier shift I must have forgotten how much it sucks to have to wake up early and drag my happy ass in here. I’ve never been a morning person, so whatever it was that possessed me to come in earlier is beyond me. Maybe it’s my evil cousin (the one without the goatee).

7:58am – between a rock and a hard place

People don’t listen. Just yesterday I changed something on the webpage and when I did it, I made it a point to specifically tell everyone what had happened, where everything was, and how they could go about performing their duties in a more proficient and effective manner. This morning, one of my co-workers came to my desk asking me why I had deleted everything from the webpage. “I didn’t,” I said. “Yes you did,” she said. “It’s not there anymore.” “Remember our conversation yesterday,” I said. “The one where I told you that your webpage had moved to…” She interrupted me. “I remember speaking with you yesterday, but what I want to know is why you deleted everything.” Life would be so much easier if the Supreme Court met the evils of stupidity with the joys of capital punishment. “If you’ll allow me a moment to speak,” I said, much like a patient grandfather speaking to a young child, “I can tell you what to do.” And I spent the next fifteen minutes explaining to the lady that the charts for which she had been looking were now located on her personal home page, which did not require clicking through any links. It took her a while, but she finally got it.

9:17am – elevated memories

Last night was the Dave Matthews Band concert up here in the land of fun. Believe me; I know. I got stuck in the flow of hippies on the way to Craig’s last night, and I nearly passed out from the patchouli stink. Damn I hate that stuff. But it reminds me of the good old days of my youth, when I used to be a damn, dirty hippie with long hair and pungent body odor. I went to many a DMB concert and took part in several illicit and illegal activities. I remember the time I went to a show in Lexington with some friends from high school. This was over Christmas break, about three months into our freshman year of college. Each of us had come home for the break because we had nothing better to do. That doesn’t happen anymore. It was me, Frank and Abe (the twins who can’t drive), Walt C., and Kristin. After the concert, we went back to the hotel and proceeded to drink ourselves into oblivion. Abe, Walt C. and I had a contest to see who could drink beer the fastest. I won. Frank sat in the corner with Kristin attempting to put his “game” into full effect. Little did he know that Kristin wasn’t interested. Little did he know that Kristin was a lesbian! At least, that is the line she used that evening. I would find out later that year that this was not exactly the case. No, not that. At any rate, the concert was very good. Dave and the boys had canceled the concert over the summer and were in the process of making it up. This was just before “Before These Crowded Streets” came out, so they were still in the process of fidgeting with new songs. We got to hear a strange combination of “Minarets,” “All Along the Watchtower,” and what would later become “Don’t Drink the Water.” It had a vague, Middle Eastern feel that worked really well with their still overtly jazz-infused style. I was incredibly high at the time, too, so you have to take that into account. I recently purchased the 2005 DMB album, stand. Either I’m a lot older than I used to be or they really suck now, because I felt like taking the cd back and throwing it at the clerk who sold it to me. I prefer to believe that they suck. Because it’s not possible that I’m getting old. No way.

10:04am – bland boredom

It’s slightly past 10am. I can’t think of anything interesting at the moment

10:52am – late morning frustration

A quote from the official website of Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan:

“The development of Astana is so important to the country that it is considered according to the law to be one of the priority spheres for attracting foreign investment. That means that business people investing their capital in Astana enjoy considerable benefits and tax incentives.”

Yeah, right. Unless you consider “considerable benefits” to be rude employees and an inability to speak anything other than unintelligible gibberish, I have to disagree.

12:24pm - After lunch.

Have you ever noticed how we define each seasonal peak by the things we complain about the most? In the Fall there are too many damn leaves to rake, and the football fanatics, those people who affix large, gaudy flags to their car windows, start coming out of the woodwork. The winter is cold and snowy, and people with less than half a brain run the roads in their SUV’s with the express purpose of running into each other and various other inanimate objects. Spring makes us all nervous because deep down inside we believe that all the rain is the beginning of another flood on the level of Noah and his ark.

Summer is no different. At first, we enjoy the breezes and the smells and warmth of the sun on our faces. But after a while, that sun becomes a grueling slave master. When all you want is a relaxing day in the yard you get sunburn. When all you want is the comfortable sun to envelope you, you nearly pass out from heat exhaustion due to humidity.

At least, that is how it seems to me, especially today when the sun has apparently pointed its bright, smiling face directly at my bald head and fat ass. I walked across the street to get some Chipotle for lunch and I almost sweat soaked my shirt it was so hot.

On the way back, I caught a whiff of chlorine from the pool at the Hilton Hotel. It took me back to the summers of my childhood when my friends and I, recently released from the public school/prison system, would wake up late in the morning and walk up to the community pool nearly every day. The first half of the trip, the mile and a half stretch down Burley Circle and Cromwell Road was always grueling and sweaty because the blacktop roads reflected the heat so well. Plus, there was that big fucking hill in the middle of it all. It took nearly ten minutes to get to the top, and when finally go there you had to sit down in Mrs. Farmer’s yard for a breater before you continued. Sometimes she’d yell at us to get moving. Most of the time she sat on her porch and sang hymns to herself. She was a little weird.

You’d think that, with all the trips I made over that hill in my youth, I’d be in a lot better shape. I guess the evils of McDonalds and high calorie beer know no bounds.

The best part of the trip was when you turned the corner at The Hitching Post, a local burger dive which later became a three star French restaurant and then a Laundromat, The road turned downhill, you walked into the cool summer shadows cast by the large oak trees next to Greenhills Middle School, and you caught that first scent of heat mixed with chlorine that said “Come on in guys, the water’s fine!” No matter how tired we were, we always ran the last quarter mile.

We stayed there for most of the afternoon; all the local kids meeting up to go swimming and play pickle in the grass behind the fence during the fifteen minute adult swim periods at the end of every hour. Hot pavement, Cool water, Jenny the lifeguard who at the time wore a seductive one piece bathing suit, Cotton candy from the concession stand. It was summer and it was beautiful.

We stayed all day, past the five o’clock rush hour when the adults went home. We’d stay in the sun till our faces peeled, then we’d go home and play baseball in the field behind the Hinkens’ house until dark.

Then we’d get up the next day and do it all over again.

Today would have been the first day of summer vacation, were I still a kid and still in school. I would, at this very moment, be either submerged in the deep end of the pool or beaning Andy Bello in the back with a tennis ball as he tried to run towards the base, which was always just one or two steps out of the reach of my vicious fastball. Instead, I am in a cubicle working for a corporation full of people who can no longer conceive a life that includes fun and play and happiness and warmth. I want that kind of happiness again. I want that kind of warmth, even if it’s a little too humid for my adult sensibilities.

As long as it has a hint of chlorine, I’ll be fine.

1:50pm: And Now For Something Completely Different

Two hours of work left and Patrick has decided to send us approvals! This means I don’t have to talk to any more damn Kazakhstanians. Or Kazakhs. Or whatever the indigenous people of Kazakhstan are called (other than “bastards” or “bags of pig-faced rat guts”). This is good!

3:41pm: The Old Junkie Shuffle

I have nineteen minutes left until my day is over, and I now have an idea what heroin addicts feel like when they’re on the verge of another fix after a long, dry spell. The legs jump, the skin crawls, and your mind races as it processes the different possibilities scenarios that might take place over the eternity that waits between now and when your fix takes hold and calms the nerves. I want to leave now more than anything else in the world. I look at the clock, I wait an eternity, and when I look at the clock again barely thirty seconds have passed. What was I saying about the relativity of time yesterday. It is more real even today.

3:45pm: A lack of pretense

Shit. Fifteen minutes to go and my boss has wondered into the area. Previously, I had given up all pretense of work and settled into wasting the vast stretches of remaining minutes and seconds checking e-mail and looking up sports scores. Now I have to open a few folders and flip back and forth between different files on my computer to give the semblance of Real Work ™. I must also take advantage of the alt+Tab keystroke which allows me to toggle screens, thus affording me the ability to hide this little ditty when administrative eyes happen to cruise in my vicinity.

3:51pm: Words cannot express

Anger. White, hot anger. The lady from across the way is talking about my web page development, complaining that it is worthless. Rather, it is she who is worthless. I take that back. She is a former Air Traffic Controller which means she is both very intelligent (in some regards, anyway) and exceptionally vicious. I’ve met their kind before and my experience tells me I must look upon this rare breed with a wary eye. Something is afoot, but as long as I keep my head down and the toggle switches ready, I should escape from this pit of despair before the weasels close in.

3:54pm: Fast and furious

They gesture wildly in my direction. Voices topple over the cubicle walls like a vast and heavy waterfall. Fear grips my heart and does not let go. What if I have to stay late? What then? Sure, an evening full of…uh oh…toggle!

3:57pm: A Quick Escape

That was a close one! The big boss man came over to ask me about the Kazakhstanian horde. Will it not end! First the web page and now this! A curse on both their houses!

3:59pm: Bad Nervousness

Two minutes. Two fucking minutes.

3:59 and a half: More Bad Nervousness

(*joe rips the last remaining pieces of hair from his head, screams loudly…nobody in the office notices *)

4:00pm: Jubilant Exultation!

In the words of the great Dr. Martin luther King Jr, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God, Almighty, I’m free at last!”

4:01pm: Incessant Depression

Free at last…until tomorrow morning at 7:00am, that is.

MIghty Glove Man Gets Off On Child Molestation Charges

Wait. That title doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean.

I wrote this for some other blog I was writing in. Then I remembered I had this place and I decided I would switch it over here. This took place the day Michael Jackson got off...I mean...was acquitted of all those charges.

You know what I mean, right?

***********************************************

So Michael Jackson is innocent, huh? Wait, no. Michael Jackson is “not guilty.” I don’t think that any man who is that effeminate, wears frilly clothes, and can sing soprano without a kick to the balls can really be called “innocent” by any stretch of the imagination.

Those kids he molested. They are innocent. Or, rather, they were.

I got home from work today and I screamed at my roommate. “DUDE!” I said. “Turn on the television. They’re about to convict the mighty glove man right fucking now!”

You’ll have to forgive me for my excited state at the prospect of the conviction of Michael Jackson. You see, my job is incredibly boring. I sat at my desk, staring at a blank computer screen this afternoon just to see how long I could do it before somebody said something to me. I waited one hour thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds. That’s a long damn time to sit around doing nothing productive. Even in Columbus, Ohio!

The sad thing is that I would love to do more work, but management has determined that I already do far too much and the only ideas I have for process improvement would increase efficiency; thereby enabling my co-workers and I to get even more work done. This would result in more complaints from management.Strange. I thought this sort of backward thinking only took place in the hallowed halls of academia. I must have been wrong.

Since you can only stare at a blank computer screen for so long, I check CNN regularly, along with my e-mail, sports scores, and the various and sundry blogs and journals I like to read from time to time. The big news today was, of course, the Jackson trial and the impending verdict, and I had been following it since at least two o'clock.

I found it odd that at around 4:00, when the newspeeople learned of the pending verdict, they began nonstop coverage of the courthouse. All the major websites ran splash covers of Michael Jackson looking pissed off and deranged with big, bold letters that read, “Wacko Jacko about to get Jacked up!” and “This Decade's Crime of the Century comes to a close” and “Click here for a year's supply of Viagra!” How is it that all these popup ads seem to know my personal problems.

Did I just say that out loud?

I left work at 4:00pm and I honestly believed I would know the result by the time I got home. But I didn’t. I thought the jury was already seated with his majesty, the clown prince of insanity, awaiting a conviction that would surely send him to a federal “pound me in the ass” prison for a long time. I'm an avid fan of Law and Order. I know how these things work. It turned out, however, that he hadn’t even left his home yet, so I had to sit on the couch while my roommate and I watched the former child prodigy make his way from the loony bin he calls a home to the other loony bin known as the Santa Barbara courthouse (the entire California judicial system has gone full tilt boogie, in my opinion).

I fell asleep. And while I slept, I dreamt of a world where justice prevailed in all instances, and where celebrity and social status were incongruous with such high-minded moral principles. I dreamt of the a place where the quality of one’s work – for better or for worse – did not determine his or her value as a person in society; where the evil were incarcerated, the innocent kept safe in their homes, and the bringers of peace and law were always wise and good. Then I realized that where my mind had taken me was somewhere very close to the Socialist utopias described in the works of Marx and Hegel, and yearned for by Upton Sinclair and the more recent (and equally as brilliant) E.L. Doctorrow and Kurt Vonnegut. I realized this and woke myself up quickly.

We can’t have those foul thoughts running around in my brain, now can we?

So I awoke to see Janet Jackson, whom, I had forgotten, was related to the king of all freaks, standing in front of a Santa Barbara police man who was in the process of using a metal detector to check for what I can only assume was some type of terrorist bomb or vial of Bocculinum. However the hell you spell it. Judging from the angle of the policeman’s gaze and the snicker that rose upon Miss Jackon’s face (hers actually moves!), I could tell that the policeman was hoping against hope for one of those wardrobe malfunctions that took place two Super Bowls ago. his wish was not granted.

Shepherd Smith and the Assistant of the Week(TM) blabbed on in the background like bad color commentators in a pointless baseball game.

“Michael is afraid,” Shepherd said. He was on a first name basis with the Sultan of Strange, apparently, even though I imagine that the two have never met. And if they have, God help Shephers Smith’s children. “Michael is feeling scared and alone at the moment,” he said. “If the jury brings a guilty verdict, it means that Michael will never again return to his beloved Neverland Ranch.”

“Yeah, Shep," the nameless assistant said. "We got it. Life in prison. That tends to happen when people are convicted of playing naked leap frog with kids. “

“Michael has a stern look on his face. You can see the fear from a mile away.”

“Actually, Shep, I think he spilled some water on his face and it hardened. Plaster can do that if you get it too wet. It looks like he’ll have to break out the hammer and chisel in order to get out of this one."

The collection of pathetic fans that stood outside (Jacko’s wackos, as I like to call them) held signs professing their love for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, decrying the Santa Barbara courts as corrupt and racist. Normally, I would agree with their assessments, but this time I didn’t. This is partially because I believe the erstwhile King of Pop to be as guilty as Charles Manson or Scott Peterson or even Orenthal James Simpson. But mostly I just didn’t want to be lumped into a group of people who welcome several individuals who have surgically altered themselves to look exactly like Jackson as he now appears in his current form.

And they say us Star Wars fans are weird. Hey, at least we can take off the Wookie costume at the end of the day.

They read the verdict and, one by one, Jackson was cleared on all charges. The freaks outside rejoiced while the freaks inside sighed in relief. I watched as the entire Jackson klan filed out of the courthouse with the wide eyes and sallow faces of speed freaks in search of the next great binge. Their faces told a story I have seen all too often on the sad streets of the poor and downtrodden.

They said, “Another bullet dodged. There is still freedom in the air! But for how long? My past deeds hang o’er my head like the sword of Damocles, swinging closer; ever closer. The sharp blade has missed on this stroke, but even now it reaches its apex and has begun a fast arc back towards what will eventually be its final resting place. My past come back to haunt my future through each of my waking steps!”

We all know that, as soon as the family was safely entombed in their SUV’s for the long ride back to Neverland, Michael turned to the sad faces of his father and said, “You know, Dad. I learned it by watching you? You know that right?”

Joe Jackson tells his youngest son to shut up, that he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He thinks that his family is sane, and that they will soon return to normalcy once the media attention dies down.

Meanwhile, Michael stares out over the rolling hills of southern California, dreaming his secret dreams no person in their right mind would ever want to see. He knows he will be caught and punished one day.

"But not today," he thinks with a shudder that turns into a sly smile. "Not today."

I haven't written anything here for a whle. This is because I completely forgot about it! I had lunch with an old friend today and he mentioned his site. I went to check it out and post a comment and I thought I would have to create an account to do so. That's when I found out that I had already created one!

Good happiness!

So, in celebration of my triumphant return to the blogging world, read this...something I wrote a long time ago:

**************************************
"Wild Turkey and Bad Artwork"

I spoke with my friend Alan the other day. It didn't have anything to do with you, though, so don't get excited. Apparently they're planningthis entertainment production here at the medical school and Alan isone of the Big Doggs(TM). He wanted to know if my department was interested in contributing an advertisement and a huge pile of money to the cause. I said that not only had my department decided to contribute, we had taken out a half page ad. To top it all off, they had consigned the greatest artist within a 0.75 mile radius (the greatest one that was available, anyway) to do the job.

Me.

But things were not all bright roses and happy children's tales. It being my last quarter here at school, I was beset by a fit of laziness and I found myself scrambling around at the last minute, frantically scribbling idiotic cartoons in hopes of impressing the medical community. What came out was not only pointless and stupid, but dumb and wrong as well. I will more than likely be drawn and quartered for my efforts.

I showed Alan the cartoon I had made, and he smiled a patronizing smile, saying, "Gee. That's kinda cool." In reality, I could tell he was thinking "no wonder it took you eight years to get out of college." He didn't want to be mean, but I could tell he thought it was shit.

I apologize for that. It's past midnight here in the land of evil, and as Aristotle once said, midnight is magic time. You can do whatever you want when the lights go down and everyone is asleep.

I could be wrong, though. Maybe it was Goethe.

Anyway, my extreme failure as an artist and editorial cartoonist thre wme into a fit of insomnia coupled with mad drinking the likes of whichI had never seen. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the television watching reruns of "Law & Order" and scarfing down mixing bowls full of cheap rice.

I just can't get enough of that show. I'm a fan of the modern version where Sam Waterston plays the assistant D.A., although I have to saythat I like the old DA better. I can't remember the old guy's name(his character's name was Adam), but Fred Thompson (the ex Senator from Tennessee) doesn't hold a candle to him. What can you do, though? He's a politician at heart, and politicians never do anything well.

I stayed up late the other night and watched four episodes of Sportscenter back to back. I know what you're thinking. A person would have to be insane to watch that much Sportscenter. That is, of course,why almost every man on the face of the earth is crazy.

Am I right. You feelin' me, bruhz?

Four hours of Sportscenter can do strange things to a person, especially considering that they play the same episode over and over. In the second hour, you can recite the lame-ass jokes in time with the show. In the third hour, you have all the sports scores from the bottom line ticker memorized and you start making bets with your alter egos, hoping to make money off yourself by covering the spread on the Knicks-Spurs game.

But the fourth hour, much like midnight as we have already discussed, is magic time. During the fourth hour, Stuart Scott communicates with you telepathically. It's like one of those dream sequences in movies where the person on television turns and starts talking to the main character while everyone else goes on like nothing is happening.

He speaks to you personally, only he doesn't call you by your real name. He gives you one of those stupid nicknames where he combines your first initial with the first few letters of your last name (T-Mac and A-Rod, for instance).

"J-Ev" he says to me. He uses my middle name, Everett, because J-Sha sounds too girlish and you can't have a girlish name in sports. "J-Ev, it's time to step up to the plate. It's the fourth quarter and there's an open net at the end of the ice. The game is on the line and it's all up to you."

Then Chris Berman comes in and starts arguing with Stuart Scott.

"Why do you always have to make up those dumb nickames, double-S?" he says. "Players had good ncknames back in the day. The Human highlight film. The round mound of rebound. The Fridge. They were cool. Yours are stupid and unoriginal."

"Well, C-Berm" Stuart Scott says,"I suppose your nicknames are the epitome of coolness?"

"They certainly are."

"I admit. Lance 'You Sunk My' Blankenship was funny the first time I heard it. But Alan 'Have Guns Will' Trammel was annoying, and Chuck'New Kids on the' Knoblauch was just plain sad."

"Hey, it's better than taking an already established player like Jerome Bettis, The Bus, and demeaning himwith a moniker as dumb and wrong as 'J-Bet. "

"Hey baldy, I call 'em like I see 'em."

"Oh, now you're a regular Cosell? I bet even the golf team gave you swirlies in high school."

That made him mad. "Don't say it," he growled.

"Oh yeah, I bet they called you Stuart 'Swirley' Scott back in the day."

"That's it, bitch. I'm gonna fuck you up."

"Come and get it motherfucker. I'm gonna tattoo your face with my five iron. I'm gonna hit a homerun...backbackbackbackbackback GONE!!!"

And they spent the rest of the episode doing the ESPN version of WWF smackdown, which was disconcerting because Chris Berman in tights is a scary thing.

In the midst of it all, Hunter S. Thompson came to my living room with two strippers, a collection of scary drugs that I am not at liberty to discuss, and a brand new bottle of Wild Turkey. We took bets on the sportscaster smackdown, smoked cheap cigars, made love to ugly strippers, and consumed terrifying amounts of illicit psychotropic substances. I passed out sometime after Chris Berman did a suplex on Stuart Scott, and Craig Kilbourn, who was a Sportscenter guy fromWayback, ran down the aisle with Keith Olbermann to take out the fat man from Philly.

I woke up three weeks later on Interstate 70 just outside Kansas City. I was dressed in an old, worn out Donald Duck outfit. My head pounded in the bright sun and my legs felt like they had been broken and set by a dyslexic midget with bad eyesight.

There was a note stapled to my left hand:

"Joe,
The road calls and I have to oblige. Mine is a life of Wild Parties with fast and loose women. Some are cut out for it and others are not. You are not. I'm sorry you couldn't keep up, but I have to move on. Itwas fun while it lasted, eh?

You are broke and dressed like a duck, but so what? Given the circumstances, it's probably the best possible situation. Don't worry. The good people of Kansas City have learned to appreciate depraved people like you. You are among friends now. Res Ipsa Loquitor!

Mahalo,
HST."

I worked for three months as a pimp on the streets of Kansas City to pay for a bus ride home, and when I got back it was like nothing hadever happened. That's one thing you learn all too quickly in Cincinnati. Time has no meaning and the people either don't know ordon't care what you do as long as you don't bother Them with your stupid antics.

Speaking of stupid antics, this is how pathetic I am. I'm in thebasement of Chad and Christy's house typing out yet another pointless e-mail to all of you while everyone else is asleep. At least I think everyone else is asleep. For all I know, Chad's incessant snoring could have Christy awake and staring at the ceiling, pondering philosophical conundrums like Nietzsche's sense of self, Russell's problems of pain and everybody's favorite philosopher, Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds 2, who said, "What if C-A-T really spells dog?"

And what if it does? What if, after all is said and done, everything we thought we knew to be true was actually false? What if up is down, left is right, good is bad, and Britney Spears really is respected forher musicianship instead of her ha ha's? What then?

If that terrible truth were to ever come out, it would cause immense chaos the world over. Nobody would pay attention to an authority figures ever again because authority is really just a form of servitude. So those in authority are really lower than us in the status of all things, therefore we do not have to pay homage to their rules and regulations. It's Ogre's theory of increasing chaos by means of increasing order.

Brilliant work, Christy! I applaud the temerity with which you spend your sleepless hours. Even if it amounts to little more than personal satisfaction, at least you aren't boring the crap out of everyone elselike I am.

Which leads me back to this e-mail. It is unfortunate that I am writing to you from Columbus instead of my home in the Nati. You see, my computer is temperamental. Sometimes it shuts off for no reason and I lose whatever it was I was working on. Believe me, I have written several e-mails that could rival the latter Stephen kingnovels in both length and sheer boredom. You haven't experienced true insomnia until you've spent eight hours in total darkness and solitude describing conversations with people who don't exist into e-mails for friends who will most likely delete everything you send them just to save time.

Most if not all of these have been struck down by my computer mere seconds before they were sent off to the farthest reaches of the internet. I suppose I could have saved them to a word document or something, but that is too much work and I am a lazy man.

So it is unfortunate for you that I am in Columbus, because I have a feeling that Chad's computer will stay up and running for the five or six hours it will take me to either bore of typing or pass out infront of the computer.

Lucky you.

So what should we talk about? The possibilities are endless. I just checked out a book from the library that was written by a lady who was a foreign news correspondent for The New York Times during the Clinton Administration. Her book is entitled"A Problem from hell" and it is about the US's policy of non-involvement in most of the major examples of true attempted genocide in the 20th century. The writing is really good so far.

But I've only made it to the third page. The book is really long and rather than taking the time to read it, I have chosen to spend most of my free time playing TexTwist on MSN. I currently have the highest score at work. I can't recall exactly what it is, but I know it's somewhere around 145,000. The next closest score is Amy, the English major, who scored 125,000. I think she would have beaten me if I hadn't unplugged her computer.

I'm a bastard like that. I hate losing, but rather than taking the time to perfect my skills, I prefer to sabotage others. I take great satisfaction in watching others fail where I have barely succeeded. I feel this is preparing me for a career as either a used car salesman or a member of the French Senate. Le chat est sur la chaise et ma grande mere est en flambé.! Ou est le bibliotechque? See, I'm ready for a long, prosperous career spouting things that make no sense and undermining the work of others.

Hold on a minute. I have run out of Mountain Dew and I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back. … Alright, I'm back.

You know, Chad, the basement down here would look nice if you'd clean it up once in a while. It's funny. You have two 24 packs of Diet Mt.Dew filled with empty cans. I got all excited a minute ago because I thought I could just skip the trip upstairs and grab a can from down here. Then I knocked the box over and spilled the cans across the floor.

It was a good thing, too, because by then I had forgottne about my trip to the restroom.

They didn't get too far, though. There is a large pile of picture frames, cds and computer wires spread out in the middle of the room that blocked their progress. There is also a small box filled with spare change and what looks like either thin mints or some sort of small, cushiony fabric. I can't really tell. My contacts are drying out and the box is at least 5 yards away; past my field of discernable vision.

Across the room from the bastion of computery goodness are the couch,which is covered by blankets, and an alcove where a collection ofmusical instruments and amplifiers sits on the floor collecting dust.The whole room has a vague, artistic feel to it. It's like one of those new age pieces Wright State kept throwing out for the public to look at and puzzle over.

That reminds me.

One of my many part time jobs at Wrong State University was as a tour guide. I quickly got tired of it and by the end of my tenure the only joy I got out of the job was to see how fast I could get through a tour and how annoyed I could make the potential families who had driven all the way to scenic Dayton, Ohio to check out their son or daughter's second or third pick for college: the one they don't really want to go to but will if Harvard and Ohio State don't call.

My record was thirteen minutes and when they left, the parents told me that I was the reason America is such a shithole. They actually usedthe word shithole, too!

But before I hit the wall of cynicism, I used to point out all the little interesting things about our wonderful school. Like, for instance, the fact that the Math and Science building resembled a pig if you looked at it correctly, and the fact that the large smokestack coming out of the ground next to the biomedical sciences building was connected to the morgue. This, I told many a horrified potential student, was where they burnt all the bodies that had been donated to the medical school for research but were no longer of use.

This was, of course, a lie. They bury the bodies deep in the woods next to the President's house and that is why the university administration board always makes sure to elect a Satanist as the newest president. He or She must tend to the poor, departed souls who had recently been used for strange and scary practices deep in the heart of our twisted medical school. The smokestack, I said, was where theyperformed nuclear tests!

Where was I? Oh yes, art!

So one day I was out on a tour and I noticed a collection of woodenbeams and poles lying in the grass next to the library. I informed the tour group that Wright State was fond of promoting the advancement of bold, new artwork, the finest example of which could be seen lying inthe grass not ten feet away.

I think my exact words were, "Look at the shit your tuition dollars will produce if you go here. Wouldn't you rather go to Ohio State? I hear they have a good football team."

So the pile of stuff sat there for the better part of a quarter, and each time I passed it I made sure to point it out to all the prospective students and their families. I was a senior member of the tour guide staff (having been there for two whole quarters), so I urged my fellow tour guides to do the same. Over the course of six or seven weeks, I would estimate that we
told a good five or six hundred people that the collection of rusty poles and wooden beams was a new form of artwork that was all the rage in campuses across the United States.

One day, shortly before finals week, I noticed construction workers moving the pile of stuff.

"What are you doing with the artwork?" I asked them.

"What artwork?' they said.

"That artwork," I said. "That pile of shit in the grass there."

"Oh that? That's not art. The contractors that were here in March never cleaned up after themselves."

"Oh. So this isn't artwork?"

"You thought it was art, too?" the guy said with a puzzled look on hisface. "That's strange."

"Why is that strange?"

"Well, the University was going to leave it here and try to get the construction company to come back and pick it up. But word got around that lots of prospective students and their parents were complaining about the ugly 'artwork' on campus, and administration contracted us to pick it up at twice the rate they paid the other guys to do the work in the first place."

"Yeah," I said, "that sure is strange." I then hurried to Millett hall, where I informed the students on my tour that the ROTC club used to have repelling classes off the top of the building until some guy fell and broke both his legs.

I pointed to the remnants of red sidewalk chalking and said, "See,they couldn't quite get up all the blood."

Your basement reminds me of that pile of useless garbage that I mistook for artwork, so please excuse me if I am quick to judge it as dirty. I do not, apparently, have a nose for high-minded artistry. If you are planning some strange and beautiful piece that expresses the bleakness of the human condition and the depth of the heart, I apologize.

It looks like crap to me.

Alright…enough torture. My fingers are tired and I'm sure you've all deleted this e-mail by now. You're lucky. I once wrote an e-mail to afriend that took up ten pages in Microsoft Word. I used 10pt font andI did it single-spaced. It was comprised mostly of long paragraphs with complex sentences that used shameless amounts of semi-colons, dashes, umlauts and other forms of punctuation that rarely see thelight of day.

I think it was about baseball, too, but I can't be sure.