A Penchant for...

The Greatest Speech Ever Made:

2011-09-26T17:53:00.000-07:00

What be the meaning yo?

2011-03-21T22:41:00.001-07:00

So the ancient question beckons: What is the meaning of life? What if there was no meaning? What if it didn’t exist? What if the meaning of life is the process of life itself? If that were the case, then maybe the proper way to approach the age-old query is to break down the process. Of course with my limited knowledge, what is divulged can be only theory. I guess theory wouldn’t even be the right word, maybe a shot in the fucking dark.

1) Knowledge: Life is about the process of acquiring morsels of truth. Bits and pieces of truth gained from the attainment of knowledge. Now this knowledge is not to be hoarded through books or through lecture. It does not come from a degree or from a position atop the social hierarchy. Instead, this is knowledge cultivated from the experiences of living. Life as we know it, is but a series of moments, strung together over time that envelopes us in a vast labyrinth known as experience. This experience is what allows us to judge what is truth and what is not. It is the barometer, which influences all future decisions. Like the cliché states: he, who knows not history, is destined to repeat it. However, the most important aspect is to realize that the smartest man in the room knows, that he knows nothing.
2) Joy: Bliss. Pure unadulterated happiness is another facet of life that cannot be underestimated. A kid chomping on an ice cream cone, their two front teeth missing, while a smile stretches across their face wider than the breadth of the Grand Canyon. It is what allows us to understand the meaning of misery, as misery is to joy as light is to dark. Without one, there can be no appreciation of the other. Of course, happiness is fleeting, but the ability to measure oneself, to sit down and appreciate the very moment of being happy, is a truly remarkable experience that should never be bastardized. By this, I mean, we cannot allow outside forces dictate to us what it is that makes us happy. Happiness is not found in a brand new Bentley coupe, and it is not found within the white sandy resorts of a place that most of us will never have the monetary means to get to. Instead, happiness is the small things. It’s the warmth of a hug from your grandmother or even a perfect stranger, as long as they have showered and they don’t seem too creepy (the stranger, not your grandmother). It’s the first day of summer, when the day is at its longest, and you know that you have your plan set and you are not going to waste a minute of it doing what you don’t want to. Joy in its purest form comes from within; it is not manipulated nor bestowed by or from others.
3) Love: Now many may say: Well isn’t Love just a facet of Joy? Not necessarily. Love can be a painful son of a bitch. Love can be a thankless endeavor chased by the lonely, or ignored by the heavyhearted. Yet, love is as much a part of humanity as is breathing. It is what makes the most mundane of conversations, the best night we ever had. Or the warmth that is felt when she smiles at you and says she’ll be right back. Love is an expansive word. Warped by the commercialism and false hope of the media, it is not a physical item that can be purchased at the drug store. A card stamped with Hallmark cannot even begin to fathom its depth, for it is the strongest part of our soul and yet the least pliable. It cannot be faked and it will not be bargained with. It is an emotion vested in all of us that some never get to measure, and that others tap into all so well.

Top 10 of 2010:

2011-01-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

10. True Grit

9. The Other Guys

8. The Fighter

7. The American

6. Kick Ass

5. The Town

4. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World

3. Shutter Island

2. Inception

1. The Social Network

Belleza

2011-01-10T11:41:00.000-08:00

What is beauty? The dictionary definition is: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations, a meaningful design or pattern. By that rationale, beauty is a set object, a sensory perception that is inspired by that which surrounds us. However, beauty is different to each person. What appears to inspire a positive reaction in one person may not instill the same thing in another. The definition may hold true, but no matter how depressing the cliché, beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. Whether it be watching your child take their first step, speak their first word, or break their first inanimate object, what may come off as annoying or spoiled to the outside observer, may be a cherished moment in the eyes of the parent. So what is beauty? How can it be defined as one to all people? How can the same instance be one and the same to all? It can’t. It never could be. What defines us as a person is not necessarily based on what we do, for perception is as much of a factor as any action we partake in. Beauty is the sun setting over the ocean. The golden ripples on the water slowly fading in and out as the sun descends over the western horizon. Beauty is your 5-year old niece telling you to not be so angry on your worst of days. It is the soft sigh your lady gives you in the earliest of mornings as she turns over and her short breath slowly catches the side of your neck, while still in the throws of a satisfying sleep. It’s Keith Richards’s guitar on Gimme Shelter. It is the utter exhaustion yet elation your dog feels after it’s just sprinted two miles with you on a deserted trail. The sound of your mother’s voice on your sickest of days as a child, telling you that she’s made you something to eat. Beauty is the bride on her wedding day. Her hair perfectly formed, her dress perfectly adorned and a radiance that forces one to never look away. Beauty is the voice of your best friend cracking as he gives his wedding vows to the love of his life. It’s the taste of grape lip-gloss on her lips as you lay the softest of kisses on her. It’s the smoky yet sustained voice of Nina Simone, wailing that black is the color of her true love’s hair. Beauty is none of these things and it is all of these things. It has no definition and it has no timeframe. It is timeless, and it is without comparison. Beauty is that which we cannot get enough of and it is that which we rarely get to experience even though it exists around us on every waking second of every day. It is the roses that we were told to stop and smell. It’s the written word. 26 letters rearranged to create the most poignant of dialogue or the cheesiest of blog entries. It is all these things and more. It’s all we can hope for and all that we can never find.

Never fund an addict:

2010-12-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

“So how many years has it been?”

Fucking Jimmy. The same witless look on his face as the last time he saw him. Front two teeth long gone, the stench of a 2-week bender was quite evident on his scent. Unpleasant as it was it never bothered him before. It was more of something that was put up with and lord knows he too at one time must’ve stunk up the ethos of those unfortunate to be around him.

“It’s been a while man…long enough to fucking know better.”

Jimmy snorted in his own distinctive fashion, tickled by the far too familiar relapse of most junkies. They had been compadres years ago. A time lost in the raising of his family, he no longer dabbled. But, she was gone now taking the two young ones with her. The drinking began soon after. At first it was a few beers at the bar. Then it turned into a few beers at home, but after awhile, the beer just did nothing for him. At that point it was nothing more than tropical Capri-Sun. So he beckoned his good friend Jack Daniels. A man of deep conviction Jack never let one forget the absolute joy he could bring into one’s darkest of days. The sleep came easier with the black and white bottle. The visions in his head slowly began to lose their realism and even these images slowly faded into the blackness. It was quite the plunge. 15 years sober. Some of it state funded, but clean nonetheless, the slippery slope was quite the easy one to find. After a few months drowned in the barley and rye, a thirst for the good stuff began to take hold of his good senses. Definitely not good for one’s good health, but he knew he could handle just one take. In moderation most anything can be a dream. The abuse was never a problem was it? It was the lack of nothing to do that made him an addict.

“You gonna hook that shit up or what Jimmy?”

“Well allow me to welcome you to my humble abode brother, first and foremost. Good to see you again. Back where you belong…”

Fuck the pleasantries; the very fact that he was in Jimmy’s “apartment” pushed the urge to the precipice. Even after all the years, the jonesing was still strong. Like the urge of a serial killer to blood-lust, the mere minutes of waiting began to feel like hours.

Jimmy slowly pulled out a small baggie opened it and slowly begin to tap, tap, tap it onto the most unseemly of spoons imaginable.

“Is that shit clean Jimmy?”

“Trust me my friend, in a few minutes it won’t even matter.”

Jimmy placed the spoon over a bunsen burner. Back in the day it was solely zippo lighters or whatever other burning apparatus existed in the moment. Jimmy had moved up, snagged from an underfunded chemistry department no doubt, but industrious nonetheless. As the cooking commenced, Jimmy reached over with his free hand and pulled a needle off the table and placed it too in the blue flame of the Bunsen burner. As the preparation began to wind down, the anticipation was palpable. Jimmy pulled his belt off and tied it to his own arm. Before realizing what was taking place, Jimmy quickly placed the needle in his own arm. The blood squirted back into the syringe before he pushed the plunger all the way down and collapsed on the filth riddled floor.

“Jimmy! What the fuck! What about me?”

“Fuck that man. You’re clean. Just cause the bitch left you doesn’t mean you need to end up where I’m at…”

a little taste...

2010-12-27T19:22:00.000-08:00

Ruffled hair, wrinkled two-button suit, his eye focused on his single malt, the faint smell of her hair engulfs his nasal passages as a sigh slowly escapes from behind his tobacco-stained teeth. It had been so long that he forgot. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how it came to this. Her green eyes used to focus upon him. A genuine glance of admiration and love lay behind her sultry soul shades as she used to whisper to him, that he was the only man for him. However, that was 8 years ago. He sits alone in the shoddiest of bars, sipping on his 4th straight drink, lost in the thoughts of the woman he once knew. Everything about her was all that was right with the world. Like a gift at Christmas, their love was pure hope and anticipation. The lust was good, but the understanding was great. As he reaches into the inside pocket of his suit, the bartender tells him that it is now last call, and also reminds him yet again that he can’t smoke in here. His hand reappears tightly clenching a crumpled and worn $20 bill, which he slowly places on the counter. The last of his money, meant for bus fare, was used instead on the generous spirits of a shitty bar. It was never meant to be this way. Sent to the Pelican Bay Correctional Facility, he had no way of even consoling her when they lost their child. They were going to name him Charlie after his favorite Uncle, a man who died too young and far too beloved. The innocence of their love had tainted itself in the filth of reality. Pure love, pure ecstasy in the arms of another; he had never experienced it before. Lost in the meandering fortunes of the concrete jungle, his eyes maintained on an unfocused path. But she set him straight. Her long dark hair, her slender frame, a petite nose, and cheeks adorned with the deepest of dimples, she was a vision that had slowly faded from his memory as the days went by. No matter how hard he tried to remember, the look of her face became more and more obscure as the days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to years. All that remained were random remembrances of her scent and faded sounds of her erratic yet charming giggle. She was everything. And through the years the realization that he now has nothing began to eat at him. Her love is what he took for granted, and now it’s all he can hope for…but it’s too late. As the saying goes, time and tide wait for no man. And after 8 years even the most loyal of the loyal would have no reason left to stick around. Gone on her way, their memories she couldn’t keep from him. He tried to do the best he could, or so he convinced himself, but in the end, ego trumped her love and for that, he will never forgive himself, even if the great state of California had forgiven him for his other indiscretions.

My ass may be dumb...

2010-12-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me the other day: Do you think you're smart? Not in a derisive manner, but posed as an honest question. My retort was a bit dismissive: My ass may be dumb, but I ain't no dumb ass (Courtesy of Quentin Tarantino via Elmore Leonard). However, in all honesty it got me to thinking. Do I really think I'm smart? Far from it. The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and that everyday is an adventure to find just a semblance of truth to what we, as a society, have allowed ourselves to become as individuals. You work a shit job, fine. You have friends who you drink and shoot the shit with, fine. Yet, through all the mundane and trivial trials of life, we've forgotten that which made us great as kids. To be curious, to not just seek an answer, but to understand why that answer is so. What is the truth? After all is knowledge not a reflection of that which we find to be true? Is not a hypothesis a query that allows for experiments to reflect that which is true? As we age, there is no quest to learn. We're too tired. We're too busy. We're too into something. Even the simplest of moments become jobs: eating, brushing your teeth, driving to work. A tribulation laced with no enjoyment as there is no quest to learn from it, only to get it done. The days crawled by when we were kids, yet now, even the dreariest and monotonous of days fly right by. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that there is nothing left to explore. When I see my nieces, all I see are quests for truth and knowledge. When she asks me if I'm joking with her, that is her quest to find the truth. 10 years from now, there will be no messing with her, for those moments of her trying to find out what I mean will be gone. Instead it will be on to the next text message, are on to the next DVR'd show. For now, it's the little truths and ideas that will compound themselves, letting her put aside the small realities and move on to the even bigger ones. A quest, that I myself need to remember. For truth, is my niece asking me if I know how to play UNO. And truth is my sister sitting in my dirty ass room for a half hour shooting the shit the day after I've had surgery. And truth is my ma, asking me when I'm gonna get married so that she can retire. Now if there is no knowledge to be found in that, then there is no point in dissecting a film, or underlining your favorite passage in that novel...cause if we don't stop to understand the little things, then the knowledge we gain is only half-assed. Almost as half-assed as asking the question: Do you think you're smart?

And the ants go marching down...

2009-09-23T23:22:00.001-07:00

Sometimes…I just don’t get it. What have we as a society become? We love to bitch and moan while sitting back and sniping out ideas, movements, and any idea that does not agree with ours. The world has become so consumed with hatred and has become so polarized that we have left no room for any type of unity or self understanding. Instead of standing up and making moves in order to better our society, one in which we all have staked our lives on, we’d rather sit on the bench, eat junk food out of a super sized bag while transfixing ourselves on reality television. As our asses become bigger and more acclimated to the seat cushions of our patent leather couches our minds continue to get smaller and smaller. The intellectual capacity of society has drastically diminished to the point where we have neither the patience nor the capability to view multiple points of view. Instead we choose the path of least involvement. If I something is presented to us that conflicts with the views that we have engrained in ourselves, we immediately dismiss it. There is no time for us to study and make one’s self familiar with said subject. Instead we either shoot it down immediately or we attack it with such fervor that beads of sweat begin to roll down our chunky foreheads and into our half closed eyes placing us in the darkest recesses of inconsideration. There is no room for debate. There is only room for argumentative stances. There is no room for acceptance. There is only room for defiance and anti-whatever the fuck it is this week. We have not become sheep. We have become lemmings; marching one by one off of the steepest cliff and into the deepest abyss of apathy. Our lives have become closed and our most trusted companion is a tube that feeds us unending programs of bullshit. With the amount of information that has become available at the tips of our fingers, we choose to let our ability to form intelligent and cohesive opinions diminish. The folks who came before us understood that to change our ways, we had to move as a unit. We had to march as one to a unified goal. Along the journey it was fine if we disagreed, as long as we understood that the discussions that evolved from such disagreements were serving the purpose of only strengthening our resolve, a resolve that insisted in the betterment of our society. We don’t have that anymore. Instead we have warring factions, positioned on either side of the fence, waiting in eager anticipation for a fuck up on the other side so that they can unlace their boots and hurl them over. The disharmony that has festered for years is beginning to boil over. The aptitude to comprehend that which we do not understand is dying a quick death leaving a future that was once filled with hope, mired in obscurity.

Reality Check

2009-09-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just sit and wonder: When is shit going to get better? You try and do your best to live up to the standard that has been behooved upon us. It has been preached that we can accomplish whatever it is we set our mind to. Maybe that is true, or maybe it's just true for those select few whose paths have already been laid out. However, why is it that some of the smartest people I know are some of the most disadvantaged people I know? There's a guy I know who can quote almost every piece of William Butler Yeats that you can possibly imagine. His speech is eloquent and his comprehension of literature is vast. His knowledge is not the off the wall trivia bullshit Ala Jeopardy, instead his learnedness has a breadth and width that is vast enough to take even the most inane conversation to the brink of an epiphany. With this deep background and ability to dissect even the most obscure passage, you would think that he was a college professor or even a man of letters. Nope. The man worked for the water company of Alameda, taking test samples of still water, putting them in vials, wrapping the vials in plastic, placing them in a small cardboard box and then placing them in an even larger cardboard box. This is what he did from 8am to 4:30pm every single day for 8 years until they laid him off. Now, when you pose the question: How the hell did you end up there? His reply, "Well, I never really went to school".

Our definition of knowledge is a farce. When you walk into a job interview, the first thing they look to is your experience and then where it is you got your degree from. My question is how fucking valid is that degree? I knew a kid who got his degree by cheating on every test and copying the homework of every good looking honey he could find. Now, he has a degree from The University of Santa Clara and a prestigious job as a hedge fund manager in the city of San Francisco. The degree he attained is amazing in the eyes of the everyday public, but in terms of being a learned individual it means fuck all. What he holds is a piece of paper signed by a former movie star governor. Ask him to dissect a passage by Eudora Welty and watch the ums fly. Plop him down in front of a desk and place a myriad of geometry and calculus problems in front of him and good fucking luck. Yet in society's eyes the cheater with the piece of paper is considered a far more valuable piece of man power then the self taught, hard working, water packer. Now, I am pretty sure I am not the only who wishes to say this, but to put is as succinctly as possible: What the fuck is up with that? When did we as a society put such value on state approved curriculum and expensive pieces of paper with stamps on them? Maybe Darwin was incorrect after all. Maybe the strong aren't the only ones to survive. Maybe the cheating, paper yielding douchebags are the ones to rule the earth. I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for a pretty big asteroid at this juncture. What say you?

Staring at the world through my rearview...

2009-06-10T19:01:00.001-07:00

We all look back and wonder what could have been. What if I had done this better? What if I had picked up the phone and called him one last time? What if I wasn’t such a dick? The results of our current situation are the scars of the life that we’ve inflicted upon ourselves. Yet what if the scars that we've been adorned with were the best things to happen to us? I remember spending my summers in Ongole, India, on the third floor of my grandfather's house just watching the sun set on another gloriously hot day. While the pavement cooled beneath my bare feet I could hear the playful bickering and incessant taunting between my mother and her siblings. In that moment, it meant nothing. It was just another day and in all likelihood I was bored out of my mind. But, looking back now, those moments were some of the best of my life. The smells and sounds are ones I can never forget. The smell of dust and the nightly meal being prepared, coupled with the sounds of rickshaw drivers strumming their bells and the vegetable merchants calling out the specials of the day still pierce all the senses embedded within me. These moments are the ones I remember, because it is these moments that I failed to appreciate at the time. The house where my grandfather raised his family still stands, but he is no longer with us. And the pack of my mother's siblings has dwindled from a strong foundation of five to just three. The venue that housed us all and which was once filled with life, is now empty and filled only with the voices of past conversations and the unappreciated steps we once laid upon the unrefined cement. The most egregious part of it all is I never got to tell them how much it all meant. I never got to pick up the phone and tell them how much even the most inconsequential moment of one summer shaped the way I am today. As a kid, time is it at a standstill. The way we presented ourselves and lived our lives was predicated on the assumption that all those we loved and cherished would be with us for the rest of our lives. The moments ingrained in us today did not hold that same sanctity when we were actually living through them. Unfortunately, all that is good never lasts. Instead we are left with memories and an infinite amount of "what ifs". To reckon that we are the controllers of our time is but a fool's dream. So when you wake up tomorrow, whether it be brushing your teeth or driving to work, savor the moment and be one with time instead of letting it pass you right on by. Because in the end, "that's all life is really, a series of moments".

***Please forgive the corny aura of this post. After we all have our moments of bathing in corn syrup.***

A Rant:

2009-05-30T11:30:00.001-07:00

Old Traditions. Sure they can be cherished and followed, but at what point do the rules of old impede one’s ability to grow? They say that the voice of the elders is one to be cherished and followed. Honestly, I’ve never heard a bigger piece of bullshit. Who’s to say that those that came before us had any real knowledge or insight to bestow? Honestly, look at the state of the world today. There are two warring factions the conservatives versus the liberals. The liberals deem themselves the progressives and akin to the hearts and thoughts of the free. The conservatives view themselves as the upholders of the status quo and the keepers of free hearts and effective thoughts. It may be accurate and some of what they say may hold in the long run, but in the end their positions and their stances are buoyed only to serve their own self interests. Knee deep in a war on terror where the battle lines have been drawn on two fronts, neither side is willing to join together. Instead while young soldiers die fighting for what some rich bureaucrat believes is the correct cause, the talking heads on Television continue to peddle the antics of the political elite. Bitching and moaning and drawing lines in the social landscape and dividing what is to be the United States of America. They say that the World War II generation was the greatest generation. They say that what they fought for and all that they accomplished is what catapulted the nation to the so called pinnacle of civilization. This may be true. However, what made them great is that the foe that they united against was evil in its purest form. A ring leader of mass genocide and a staunch advocate of superficial hate that evolved into deep hatred towards a particular group of people. The greatest generations’ goal was clear and the effects of what would have happened if they failed, dire. Their objective was not to divide their own people in times of crisis, but to unite them against an inhuman enemy. Now a new enemy has emerged, a faceless enemy that hides in the shadows waiting to wreak havoc on the innocent. They wait to commit atrocities that are unfathomable due to the lines and stances created by bureaucrats in power. Yet these older men with their traditions and cherished agendas do not choose to unite us. Instead they continue to place a wedge within the psyches of the public with their divisive dialogue and their “you’re either with us or against us” speeches. There is a freedom to speak, that is true, and it is the most powerful gift that can be bestowed upon any group of citizens. However, please note that there has never been a law put in place where we have to listen. The elders have lost their touch. With the spread of technology and the ability to create and sustain intelligent conversation instantaneously with anyone across the globe, the ability to amalgamate has never been easier. When the people unite and fight against plans of action that they feel are harmful to themselves and their future relations, it is their duty to hear us. They don’t hear us anymore, lost in their corruption and the unmitigated dissolution of their morals; we are placed in a position where a myriad of indecent people are leading the social agenda. In the end these people who were to look out for us and to protect us and keep us in a state of progression have failed us all. Whether liberal or conservative, their platforms are weak and their so called words of wisdom have fallen on deaf ears. The respect and cherishment of the elders is no longer a necessity and it is time to simply tell them to fuck off. The time has come to shed the old way of thinking and to bequeath our respect and admiration to those who do not serve their own self interest. As a wise man once said, “I was given this world I didn’t make it”. And by golly, look at what they have placed before us. A cereal bowl full of shit and a carton of expired milk in which to nourish ourselves. As a free thinking individual with the intellectual propensity to know right from wrong, I for one will no longer partake in the meals that they choose to serve us.

The First Post

2009-05-18T20:24:00.001-07:00

Sniff, sniff...you smell that? Smells like my first post. It smells of monkey feces. So I guess I must first apologize for the stench. Moving on, I never understood this blogging shit. My initial reaction was: What's the point of reading something posted by a random individual who is completely inconsequential to anothers life. But, after serious contemplation, I realized that there in lies the mother fucking point. Why the fuck not? We weren't all born with the writing prowess of a J.D. Salinger or a Ralph Waldo Emerson, but to deny that our emotions and/or feelings are any less important because seniors in high school aren't being subjected to its prose on a quarterly basis...well that's just asinine. This is a new age. This is the age where the bullshitters and the underachievers unite. This is where we get together to celebrate our mediocrity. After all isn't that what life is all about? Connections? To find someone, rather anyone, who exists on the same mental plateau is not to be scoffed at. Finding someone you can shoot the shit with all day and into the night is something that is to be treasured. So my fellow bloggers, here we stand. If you've got some shit to say, say it. If you've got some shit to write, write it. And if you have a penchant for anything well, this is most definitely the spot. So until next time...Cheers.