Where is everyone going?

In the past month, a few people have passed away long before their time.



Van Wastell 1984-2008



Also Evan Tanner (Feb. 11, 1971 - Sept. 8, 2008) passed away recently.


This is where I put a "WTF!?!?!??!?!" and get a little depressed. But, I don't have to. These men lived good lives and I'm sure that they would want us to celebrate their lives rather than grieve over their deaths. All I know is these men were human beings like you and I. They did what they could while they were here, and they both did it splendidly. That is all that really matters.

Somethings Can Not Crush A Human Spirit

Today I read an article involving to Pakistani women, who's faces have been severely damaged by arson and acidic burns. Liaqat and Akbar are among the many women in Pakistan who face life changes incidents like this. There faces have been mangled to the point that they are almost unrecognizable. Such a tragedy would normally place any person into a state of severe depression and alienation from the outside world. In a world where beauty is not only valued, it is almost a necessity, some would rather die than lose their good looks. Instead of letting the world stomp their now hideous faces into the ground, Liaqat and Akbar now work as beauticians. They live the same lives that they did before their accidents, and don't let the scars on their faces slow them down. We hear from the majority of our American public that beauty does not matter; that makes the majority of Americans bold faced liars. Only a select few people on this planet could care less what a person looks like. You can not tell me that in this nation; where the media is run by chiseled jaw, perfect tan, big breasted, perfect smile, contently rich news casters, that looks do not matter. Employers tell their clients that they are not chosen based on looks but, do you see any haggard women working at the high fashion stores in the mall? Now, young girls and even young boys are constantly pressured by friends, family, and acquaintances, to look as beautiful or handsome as possible. In school, anyone who breaks the status quo of beauty in the lunch room or class room, in immediately ostracized by the "pretty" people. If our top super models were in a tragic accident which deformed their faces and bodies, their careers would be over. The public would be disgusted and while they would feel bad and maybe shed a few tears, most of them would be able to look past the scars left behind.

Issues like this that exist in the hellacious pit that is human nature, makes me sick. Looks should not matter to anyone. For many years, people did not even have the choice of who they were to marry. Now, instead of looking for the subtleties and good qualities of our spouses, we just look at their body. Love, seems to be just a word now. A word that once was a feeling, an emotion, something that was pure and true. Centuries later, that word has been raped, pillaged, and divorced many times, and has no meaning any more. The only word that matters to the public eye is beauty. Which has been degraded to the equivalent of sex. Of course, that is the only thing that sells anymore, and it comes very cheap.

A Brief Connection Between Material and Man

Recently I took a trip down to our nice little mobile home in Florida. It's a fun place to stay every now and then but, we always seem to have some sort of complications when we go. The trip we took recently was no exception. We finally got carpeting put in on the living room floor; so I don't have to fret over stepping on any tacks or splinters. The main problem was the trailer we had to tow down there to carry our lawnmower. It made our gas guzzling Dodge Ram's MPG go from 11 or 12 MPG to a horrible 8.5 MPG. All in all the trip cost about $400 in gas alone.
On the way back the trailer hitch jolted off, and if it had not been for the chains holding the trailer to the bumper, someone could have died on that highway. Yes, the great American highway that I always speak of, filled with so many loose objects and potholes. The thought ran through my head that somewhere along the line this had happened to another family, and they did not have the chains to save a life hitched to the back of their vehicle. There is a saying that life hangs on a string but, thankfully life was hanging on a reinforced steel chain for someone that day.
Everyday the people of the world think of and see the horrible happenings of the world, and think "That could never happen to me." Well those people should also learn the phrase "Never say never." All it takes is an incident that is barely avoided and everyone learns a little bit more about themselves. Whether it's the religious side that comes on so strongly when the incident occurs, or the fearful side that makes us pull over to the side of the road and gasp in fear. No matter what the reaction, the action is always an act of fear showing itself. Like animals that become weary and aggravated when their territorial boundaries are broken, humans tend to become upset and threatened by anything that breaks their boundaries.
Our reaction to being robbed is not only the fact that our valuables have been lifted from our humble abodes but, that our space has been violated. Someone has ruined our comfort zone and it will never be the same. Children can get over this fear in a record amount of time because, everything is new and always changing, they do not have to connect with one thing for very long. When we become adults we grow more attached to the things we own. We work hard and take the time to make sure that the niceties are not tampered with. The fact is that we are all animals, we are all beasts on the inside, and it only takes a mere break in the chain to set that instinct free. We fight when we are challenged, we fear when our safety is broken, we weep when we are hit with something completely unexpected, we curse anything and everything over something that we do not understand.
There is no stopping this feeling, it is in our primal existence. We can say it is traced back to some childhood happening or catastrophic incident that we perceived. We can say that we are all "normal", and we can control anything that we need to. It is not unusual to want control, we all need a feeling of control of something. If we do not control a thing, then we are nothing. So in the end, my friends, do we all just become things? Sink your teeth into that one tonight.

R Kelly....not guilty?

On the radio today (station 97.5FM Raleigh, NC) the DJs proudly announced that the famous R&B artist, R Kelly, was found not guilty on charges of having sexual activities with a girl no older than the age of 14. The question is, why? Why would the American legal system find such a horrid offense not guilty?

Child pornography, it is a rising problem in our American society and it's not being handled quick enough. While we have federal departments working around the clock to stop Internet fiends out to find a young child to rape or kidnap, we are missing the big picture. During the beginning of the Patriot Acts, George W. Bush enacted a department which would track down terrorist, by using key words in the world wide web. While terrorism is still a threat and will always be a threat, there are personal issues that should also be taken care of in the United States of America.

The rising number of drug scandals and underage sex running through our habitats are growing at alarming rates. While we have found tiny submarine like vessels transporting large quantities of cocaine and marijuana from Cuba, the danger of drugs like LSD, Heroine, and Crack are still on the loose. We may be able to stop the drugs from getting on to American soil but, how can we stop it in our ghettos and run down neighborhoods right now?

Child pornography makes me sick just thinking of the words that complete the action. While I will not share my personal views on what I think of R Kelly as a person. I will say that his actions in the case of raping and urinating on a fourteen year old girl are atrocious. I do believe he is guilty, even if there is a lack of evidence.

It may be asked why I focus on these issues and not more impending issues such as murder and white collar crimes; I'll just save those for another blog.

Drug addicts will crucify me for being against them because, I was once a drug addict myself. I did not dwell into the realms of heroine and crack. I did however constantly use grass, pills, and alcohol. I did however use cocaine once but, it was an experimentation and I did not find it satisfying what-so-ever. The drug community is a weird melting pot of psychos, weirdos, and loonies. They do not all start off this way. They start off as normal people just like you but, then again, what really is normal?

My question for everyone is, why can't we start a new organization that focuses twenty four seven on just tracking down sex offenders, rapist, child pornography makers, kidnappers, and potential sex fiends? We need to start cleaning up America, and I believe (due to the recent issues of drug submarines and the R Kelly case) we should start in these two areas.

The Beginning of The Saga?

There are no jokes. Truth is the funniest joke of all.
-Muhammad Ali

Though we are getting closer to the end of these travesties of adventures the American public calls school, I am feeling at some sort of loss. I don't know if it's the face I found at school's no joke and now I'm shooting a full clip, all at one time, to try and hit my target. I want to become a journalist so much, that I'm going to have to kill every nerve in my brain to try and complete that goal. I've been reading 'Kingdom of Fear' by Hunter S. Thompson and it's one of the most estranged tales of a human I have ever read. He knows more about law, life, drugs, writing, and politics in general, than most people know who actually study or do these things. He has lived a true life dedicated to being whatever the fuck he wants to be.

Freelance, it sounds like it will be the most trouble and good to ever come out of my life. Though I probably will not follow the same path as Hunter (drugs, mass alcohol, random sex) the world has become more dangerous, therefore the stories covered will be like land mines. One wrong step, and I'm shit out of luck.

Well that's all I have to right for now, I guess I'll go back to sitting here in Latin Club.

Peace

Is Dead

It's depressing to think about but, skateboarding has just become less fun. I can't go roll out there and do it like I want to. It occured to me that I can't make a living out of it like I dreamed about because kids half my age are doing double the tricks I can do, first try everytime. I just ride around and have fun now, I'm not even worried about landing new tricks. Everyone's kickflipping and nollie heelflipping out of every grind imaginable nowadays and all the creativity is just dead. Just like when everyone went out and jumped on the biggest hand rail, skateboarding's dying. I love it so much and I won't give it up for the world, but it's going through it's annual period. It gets really trendy for a decade or so, and then once everyone's raped it of all it has to offer at the time, they dump it like a cheap toothless hooker.

I want to be the one to bring the creativity back, but it's just moving too fast. I think of something and the next day it'll be on youtube done by somebody who's style is to wear tight pants and top hats. Speaking of youtube, it is another thing that has killed skateboarding. I was extremley pissed off the day I saw Cairo Foster's part from the Lakai video THE DAY AFTER THE RELEASE on youtube. Everyone just wants their videos for free and it seriously put a knife in the back of every skateboarder out there. I guess it just happens, but I'll keep skating, it just won't be my yearly income. And I'm fine with that.

Dead or Alive

I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride....


So lately I have become very enticed with the show "The Deadliest Catch", as I explained in my last update, it shows one of the most awesome jobs ever. I'll explain myself by telling you about it.

The Time Bandit (my favorite) is lead by John who is a very sporadic man. In the world of any high seas fishing you're never supposed to leave port on a Friday. You can leave at 11:59 on a Thursday night or 12:01 on a Saturday morning, but you never leave on a Friday; it's bad luck. Well everyone stayed docked because it was a Friday and there was a storm coming. John said fuck that and left dock on Friday. But being the superstitious man he is he did a Swedish left hand circle to prevent bad luck when he left port. It helped him and he beat the bad weather and got all of his crabs pots (cages) out before everyone else.

Then there is the Cornelia Marie lead by a father whose son works on deck with him. His son is a greenhorn which basically means he's a rookie of the seas. I forgot the captains name but his son's name was Jake. Anyways, Jake proved he was tough enough to work on the ship when his father bet he could beat him at a game of chicken. Not like racing cars head to head chicken. No it's when two men put one arm against the other man's and drop a lit cigarette in between them; first to flinch loses. Needless to say Jake won. They're a very good team but on their first day off on the first episode their ship had engine troubles and they were in the midst of a bad storm. So they had to dump all their pots as soon as they could to prevent from flipping. In a storm if the ship has too many pots on it, it ruins the ships balance and makes it easier to flip.

The Northwestern was headed by Sib, who beared some resemblance to William Defou (spelled his name wrong, think of Platoon & Green Goblin guy). But he's blond and very funny. They left port on Saturday with the rest of the fleet and got caught in the storm. Not much happened on Sib's end but his crew is awesome.

My second favorite is the Maverick, which in the first season was headed by a different captain. Now it's headed by one of the young guys who was a deck hand and that kid's got some talent. On the first episode they failed their inspection and had to get a new quota on how many pots they could hold. There is a restriction on how many you can hold now due to the fact ships have flipped from being unbalanced and severe storms. Well their last inspection like that was in 1988 and the guy who wrote the warrant is dead. So they had to get a whole new inspection and got demoted from being able to hold 100 pots to only 70. Which sucks because the more pots you have, the better chance you have of catching more crab. They got off to a late start and probably didn't do good that season, I forget.

There's also the Rollo but I didn't pay close attention to them. All I know is they're a husband and wife team.

Anyways it's a great show, go watch and figure out what I'm talking about.

Anyone wanna go fishing?