By Chase Langdon
This post may seem a bit different than other posts I have posted. It is about relationships and love. It is not negative nor am I complaining about some system. I am simply talking from the depths of my thought process about how I feel about our significant others.
I feel long distance relationships work better than close ones, at least for the first stages of the relationship. This kind of relationship is only for those who are truly in touch with themselves, fully aware of who they are as a person. This said, long distance is not for everyone. But for those that this applies to, can flourish with a ride of a relationship that will surpass any connection with any other human being you ever meet.
The basic reason this kind of relationship flourishes, in my opinion, is the fact that most of your relationship relies on conversation. I don’t believe in love at first site. But I do believe, if one has had many engaging conversations, and have connected in a way that makes them feel comfortable before actually meeting in person, then I guess it would be love at first site even though they have already been talking for months. This is how it was for Amber and I.
We talked for hours about whatever. Our conversations ranged from music to movies to farting. We didn’t even have to talk much sometimes; sometimes we didn’t really have much to talk about but just knowing the one person that makes you feel one is only a “you there?” away made us feel safe. We first talked for the first time online around June of 2004. We first talked on the phone around September 2004. We first met in person in October 2004. We stated our 4 year (in October of this year) long relationship in October 2004.
You can really tell when you have found the person you really connect with, when you can go through really tough times and still be able to find things to talk about, laugh, and be happy about. “Through think and thin,” I’ve heard that so many times in hardcore songs and in marriage vows but its so true. Only when you truly connect will you stay together forever. Sex is not everything; looks aren’t everything. Sex and looks are always a plus, but will they get you happiness forever and a healthy long term relationship? No is the answer. I am lucky to say that I have a beautiful girlfriend that I’m happy to have a family with, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This is the part of the post we all say: “awww!”
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Why Don’t I Have A “H.U.D.” In My Eyesight?
By Chase Langdon
People sure do rely on the statistics too much. I myself was once guilty of this. The Statistics are not an accurate measurement of human nature. Actually no measurement is accurate. We are not computers. We do not speak in binary. We cannot be measured in numbers as a robot can be configured.
This brings me to my meat. My big daddy. My mother of pearl. My real sausage ball. I was told that statistics say that media violence affects people as a whole and not all people but as a whole. They said this is a fact because we can see it in numbers its something we can measure. I’m sorry but the human mind and actions cannot be measured. We are such a diverse culture on earth that nothing is constant. Everyone knows to have a successful science experiment you have to have a constant!
The even more specific of topics here is video games. I play “first-person shooters” or FPS video games. These games are very violent even with out blood (which usually gets a teen rating rather than mature). They help me with aggression and work stress and stress in the world at all! I have a lot of friends that enjoy the FPS. If this statistical accusation was true then myself among many other of my friends would be trained cold blooded killers that killed without mercy or remorse. This is not true. We are not cold blooded killers and I know of millions upon billions of earthlings FPS players who are not cold blooded killers but love to play these wonderfully violent video games.
Somebody once told me that what we did in videos games is what we would do if there were no consequence. Of fucking course it would be! Now let me explain what “no consequence” really means. No consequence doesn’t mean just no rules of government. I would still have a conscience, and a gut for morality without government and a respect for mankind. How do you think government got started. Human kind figured out really quick that killing everyone just for the sake of killings didn’t do very much for pro-creation. No consequence goes deeper than that. Without consequence means we have a world where people didn’t really die. It means when we die we get to start over and over and a recent checkpoint or manual save. It means that if we get hurt it only takes a bit from our health meter and we can replenish it by eating first-aid kits.
This of course is not reality nor is it even possible. It is only possible in the virtual safe haven of video game violence. Remember the gun was invented before the television, VCR, DVD player, and the X-box.
People sure do rely on the statistics too much. I myself was once guilty of this. The Statistics are not an accurate measurement of human nature. Actually no measurement is accurate. We are not computers. We do not speak in binary. We cannot be measured in numbers as a robot can be configured.
This brings me to my meat. My big daddy. My mother of pearl. My real sausage ball. I was told that statistics say that media violence affects people as a whole and not all people but as a whole. They said this is a fact because we can see it in numbers its something we can measure. I’m sorry but the human mind and actions cannot be measured. We are such a diverse culture on earth that nothing is constant. Everyone knows to have a successful science experiment you have to have a constant!
The even more specific of topics here is video games. I play “first-person shooters” or FPS video games. These games are very violent even with out blood (which usually gets a teen rating rather than mature). They help me with aggression and work stress and stress in the world at all! I have a lot of friends that enjoy the FPS. If this statistical accusation was true then myself among many other of my friends would be trained cold blooded killers that killed without mercy or remorse. This is not true. We are not cold blooded killers and I know of millions upon billions of earthlings FPS players who are not cold blooded killers but love to play these wonderfully violent video games.
Somebody once told me that what we did in videos games is what we would do if there were no consequence. Of fucking course it would be! Now let me explain what “no consequence” really means. No consequence doesn’t mean just no rules of government. I would still have a conscience, and a gut for morality without government and a respect for mankind. How do you think government got started. Human kind figured out really quick that killing everyone just for the sake of killings didn’t do very much for pro-creation. No consequence goes deeper than that. Without consequence means we have a world where people didn’t really die. It means when we die we get to start over and over and a recent checkpoint or manual save. It means that if we get hurt it only takes a bit from our health meter and we can replenish it by eating first-aid kits.
This of course is not reality nor is it even possible. It is only possible in the virtual safe haven of video game violence. Remember the gun was invented before the television, VCR, DVD player, and the X-box.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Low-Pay, Shit-Covered, "take-it-in-the-ass" Bitches We Happen To Be
By Chase Langdon
The Job system in North Carolina is so fucked to be point blank. I have to live in government housing and use other government resources for income because I only make enough money to pay the bills and not even that since we get help from HUD for rental assistance. All this is great when you need it, but why do we need it?
Why do able bodies like myself have to go to extreme measures to live? It’s because of the economic travesty in America. North Carolina is a right to work state, which means an employer doesn't have to have a reason to fire you. They could just feel that having an even number of employees and that would be easier to count. I don't know but they don't have to have a reason.
I was fired from a company out of Waynesville called Haywood Vocational Opportunities. This company makes medical drapes for hospitals all over the world. They also own a small sign shop that also does metal engravings such as plaques. The sign shop is called HVO Signs and Engraving. I worked there from October to December of 2007. It was an okay job, I got good pay. I did have to deal with some bullshit from other employees though, which worsened the longer I worked there. I was required to have at least and Associates Degree in Graphic Design, but I was offered the job anyway. The funny part about this is I was the only one there with any education in graphic design at all. Every time I’d correct someone’s design flaws I would be ridiculed. I was told to forget everything I learned in design school because the real design world is not like that. Everything I learned was turned upside down by these no-designing sons-a-bitches. I know that the design world is exactly as brutal and thought provoking as design school makes it out to be and more. These people at HVO lived by the rules of symmetry and filling every space on the page with swoops and stars. Bigger is better in their book. I live by the rules of asymmetry and simply: less is more. Aside from our different views on design I was fired for another reason, so they say.
I used the Internet that they provided us to make a blog and portfolio called Chasography for my design work. I made my first post circa the 13th of December and was fired on the 19th. They found this site out to be a "personal business." They made it out like I actually made money from this and on their time. I was fired immediately and without any warning. After my firing I was denied unemployment benefits. I was offered to rebuke this but the hearing was called while I was working at my new job, which I didn't get until the end of February. Since I was fired in December and didn't get another job until February, we were kicked out of our apartment and lived with my fiancée’s parents until May. Is this justice?
Can this happen? Yes it can and there is nothing I could do about this; North Carolina is a right to work state. Plus how fucking hard it is to find a job that will pay the bills doesn‘t help. I do not have that job; I make around 300 dollars a month. I think it’s really shitty for the fact that the hardest most grueling and despicable jobs pay little and the more air conditioned desk based jobs like designing pays more. Further more you have to have money to go back to college which I don't have. You have to move to a bigger city for to-do design jobs which is out of the question right now. The common blue collar working-class boy is shit on day after day. I clean up after people who can't even shit in the toilet and make it in without getting it all over the walls. This is the employment system of North Carolina, and most likely the whole Goddamn country.
The Job system in North Carolina is so fucked to be point blank. I have to live in government housing and use other government resources for income because I only make enough money to pay the bills and not even that since we get help from HUD for rental assistance. All this is great when you need it, but why do we need it?
Why do able bodies like myself have to go to extreme measures to live? It’s because of the economic travesty in America. North Carolina is a right to work state, which means an employer doesn't have to have a reason to fire you. They could just feel that having an even number of employees and that would be easier to count. I don't know but they don't have to have a reason.
I was fired from a company out of Waynesville called Haywood Vocational Opportunities. This company makes medical drapes for hospitals all over the world. They also own a small sign shop that also does metal engravings such as plaques. The sign shop is called HVO Signs and Engraving. I worked there from October to December of 2007. It was an okay job, I got good pay. I did have to deal with some bullshit from other employees though, which worsened the longer I worked there. I was required to have at least and Associates Degree in Graphic Design, but I was offered the job anyway. The funny part about this is I was the only one there with any education in graphic design at all. Every time I’d correct someone’s design flaws I would be ridiculed. I was told to forget everything I learned in design school because the real design world is not like that. Everything I learned was turned upside down by these no-designing sons-a-bitches. I know that the design world is exactly as brutal and thought provoking as design school makes it out to be and more. These people at HVO lived by the rules of symmetry and filling every space on the page with swoops and stars. Bigger is better in their book. I live by the rules of asymmetry and simply: less is more. Aside from our different views on design I was fired for another reason, so they say.
I used the Internet that they provided us to make a blog and portfolio called Chasography for my design work. I made my first post circa the 13th of December and was fired on the 19th. They found this site out to be a "personal business." They made it out like I actually made money from this and on their time. I was fired immediately and without any warning. After my firing I was denied unemployment benefits. I was offered to rebuke this but the hearing was called while I was working at my new job, which I didn't get until the end of February. Since I was fired in December and didn't get another job until February, we were kicked out of our apartment and lived with my fiancée’s parents until May. Is this justice?
Can this happen? Yes it can and there is nothing I could do about this; North Carolina is a right to work state. Plus how fucking hard it is to find a job that will pay the bills doesn‘t help. I do not have that job; I make around 300 dollars a month. I think it’s really shitty for the fact that the hardest most grueling and despicable jobs pay little and the more air conditioned desk based jobs like designing pays more. Further more you have to have money to go back to college which I don't have. You have to move to a bigger city for to-do design jobs which is out of the question right now. The common blue collar working-class boy is shit on day after day. I clean up after people who can't even shit in the toilet and make it in without getting it all over the walls. This is the employment system of North Carolina, and most likely the whole Goddamn country.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Contradictions of a Generation or: Why I Now Consider Kurt Cobain to be the best Anti-Hero of the 90's.
By Max Kath
I have been spending the past few weeks doing a few different things: reading a lot, going through an existential crisis of identity, going to my Grandfathers funeral, and trying my damnedest to figure out something of any value to write here in this blog that Chase has so graciously set up for me to be an editor of. And while I don't know if this can really be considered a post of any value I think I may have finally had a breakthrough in most unlikely of forms: Kurt Cobain. But before I get to that let me backtrack a little bit: most of the reading I've been doing is the book "Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth" by David Browne (which I recommend to anyone who has ever been interested in the old New York underground art movement of the late 70's through the 1980's) which has started to make me feel nostalgic for a version of the 80's and 90's that I never experienced. I grew up in the 90's and I got to hear a lot of the bands that were performing on the top 40 radio stations but I never got to experience the wonders of the grunge movement, or the excitement of going to the first Lolapalooza tour, or to listen in amazement to the sounds that Sonic Youth and Nirvana were making with their most popular albums that were coming out at that point. I'm old enough to remember all of those things, but not old enough to say "I was there when Nirvana broke big" or "My friend brought over this really good album called 'Gish' by some band called Smashing Pumpkins" but I can revel in the fact that there was this show on MTV called Total Request Live (or TRL for you purists) that boosted the sales of *NSYNC and had the number three spot reserved for the band Korn when they released their "Freak on a Leash" video.
But I digress. The other book I've been reading off and on for the past few days is a collection of dramatic work from the author Samuel Beckett. Beckett was a published poet, author, and playwright who would often write in the style of existentialism (which for those who don't know states that all things in life lead to one inevitable conclusion: death). His work has been some of the most challenging and well written things I have ever had the pleasure of reading and his philosophy is one that greatly influenced me in writing this entry (for no other reason than because I needed to find someone who could kick my lazy ass out of bed and make me leave my mark on the world). While at Target the other day I happened upon the movie "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" and decided to buy it along with the documentary "Grizzly Man" (which I also highly recommend) because I had heard good things about the movie and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Throughout the film we see numerous locations throughout Washington state and hear an audiotape of an interview done with Cobain before he died. Throughout the narration he shares many stories about his childhood and his family life and how he came to meet a bunch of people who would inspire him to form a band etc. The movie was pretty good with some moments of great insight to the man that most people have elevated to the realm of martyrdom. For the record I am not one of those people, but I can't deny that because of the Sonic Youth book my fascination with the myth that surrounded not only Cobain but all of Generation X has once again been rekindled; the idea that there was a large group of 18- 20 somethings that were so pissed off at the establishment set up by Ronald Regan and George Bush Senior (and to a certain degree Bill Clinton) that they had too find creative ways of expressing themselves to protest the bullshit that the establishment was piling on top of them (the 1960's anyone?). The reason I call this a myth is that the movement only last for about six or seven years before it imploded on itself, giving way to the whinny bitch movement of Nu-Metal and subsequent rise in pop radio hits that were so upbeat and friendly that they brainwashed a whole new of generation of kids. The people who were prevalent in the movement promised to be our undying symbols of protest and change through out the country, giving hope to all the disenfranchised youth who had lost their place in the world. This brings me to the one and only Mr. Cobain and his glorious contribution to the world.
Cobain represented, for most of the Gen-X crowd at least, someone who had grown tired of the corporate lifestyle that was taking over America's youth (and still is); the lifestyle that tells the kids how to dress, what music to listen too, where to go to get your morning cup of coffee etc. and Cobain hated all of it... especially when he became part of it. There is a classic Rolling Stone cover that has Cobain wearing a shirt that says "Corporate Magazines Still Suck," his attempt to justify being on the cover of a magazine that represented everything that he hated at that moment in time. The only problem was he probably didn't hate it that much at all, sure he was pissed that he had sunk to the low of dumbing the world down even more but at least he was getting paid to do so. In the film we hear a snippet of an interview where Cobain talks about the pressures of putting out a new record and then goes on to say that he would gladly take a check written to him by the head of the label. Granted he said that because he was wanting to put some money away for his daughters' future, but the scene acts as a glimpse into the true meaning behind Kurt Cobain: he was a human being who was no better or worse than anyone else and had been just as brainwashed as the kids who were going to see him in concert. Cobain came to represent everything he was railing against when he first got into making music, that part everyone knows, but what no one really thinks about is the fact that it happened to him in a very Orwellian way. He was systematically broken down by the very system he hated. He came to love corporate America just as much as Winston came to love Big Brother at the end of "1984." I may be exaggerating a little, but not by much, Cobain was very much the prototypical anti-hero because of what he came to represent in later years. Gen-X imploded on itself by 1998: most of the people in Gen-X were starting to go to collage or graduating from it and going out into the real world, they would trade in their flannel shirt, ripped up jeans, and Doc Martin boots for a three piece suit. They would move out of that dingy, dank apartment and move into a two story house in the suburbs with their girlfriend or fiance and have a few kids. They would go on to become successful business men or women and forget about all the idealism that they had growing up in the time of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. They would all go on to become yuppies and their kids would grow up listening to music like Korn and Marilyn Manson who will someday become the music that they look back on and wonder where all the good music went. And their martyr, their man upon the cross, the man who was the voice of a generation shot himself in the head to die for all the sins they were about to create.
And all the while I'm here feeling nostalgic for the version of the 90's that I never had, never will have, and will never exist again. Next time I think I'll talk about the nostalgia that I have for the 90's I do remember.
I have been spending the past few weeks doing a few different things: reading a lot, going through an existential crisis of identity, going to my Grandfathers funeral, and trying my damnedest to figure out something of any value to write here in this blog that Chase has so graciously set up for me to be an editor of. And while I don't know if this can really be considered a post of any value I think I may have finally had a breakthrough in most unlikely of forms: Kurt Cobain. But before I get to that let me backtrack a little bit: most of the reading I've been doing is the book "Goodbye 20th Century: A Biography of Sonic Youth" by David Browne (which I recommend to anyone who has ever been interested in the old New York underground art movement of the late 70's through the 1980's) which has started to make me feel nostalgic for a version of the 80's and 90's that I never experienced. I grew up in the 90's and I got to hear a lot of the bands that were performing on the top 40 radio stations but I never got to experience the wonders of the grunge movement, or the excitement of going to the first Lolapalooza tour, or to listen in amazement to the sounds that Sonic Youth and Nirvana were making with their most popular albums that were coming out at that point. I'm old enough to remember all of those things, but not old enough to say "I was there when Nirvana broke big" or "My friend brought over this really good album called 'Gish' by some band called Smashing Pumpkins" but I can revel in the fact that there was this show on MTV called Total Request Live (or TRL for you purists) that boosted the sales of *NSYNC and had the number three spot reserved for the band Korn when they released their "Freak on a Leash" video.
But I digress. The other book I've been reading off and on for the past few days is a collection of dramatic work from the author Samuel Beckett. Beckett was a published poet, author, and playwright who would often write in the style of existentialism (which for those who don't know states that all things in life lead to one inevitable conclusion: death). His work has been some of the most challenging and well written things I have ever had the pleasure of reading and his philosophy is one that greatly influenced me in writing this entry (for no other reason than because I needed to find someone who could kick my lazy ass out of bed and make me leave my mark on the world). While at Target the other day I happened upon the movie "Kurt Cobain: About a Son" and decided to buy it along with the documentary "Grizzly Man" (which I also highly recommend) because I had heard good things about the movie and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Throughout the film we see numerous locations throughout Washington state and hear an audiotape of an interview done with Cobain before he died. Throughout the narration he shares many stories about his childhood and his family life and how he came to meet a bunch of people who would inspire him to form a band etc. The movie was pretty good with some moments of great insight to the man that most people have elevated to the realm of martyrdom. For the record I am not one of those people, but I can't deny that because of the Sonic Youth book my fascination with the myth that surrounded not only Cobain but all of Generation X has once again been rekindled; the idea that there was a large group of 18- 20 somethings that were so pissed off at the establishment set up by Ronald Regan and George Bush Senior (and to a certain degree Bill Clinton) that they had too find creative ways of expressing themselves to protest the bullshit that the establishment was piling on top of them (the 1960's anyone?). The reason I call this a myth is that the movement only last for about six or seven years before it imploded on itself, giving way to the whinny bitch movement of Nu-Metal and subsequent rise in pop radio hits that were so upbeat and friendly that they brainwashed a whole new of generation of kids. The people who were prevalent in the movement promised to be our undying symbols of protest and change through out the country, giving hope to all the disenfranchised youth who had lost their place in the world. This brings me to the one and only Mr. Cobain and his glorious contribution to the world.
Cobain represented, for most of the Gen-X crowd at least, someone who had grown tired of the corporate lifestyle that was taking over America's youth (and still is); the lifestyle that tells the kids how to dress, what music to listen too, where to go to get your morning cup of coffee etc. and Cobain hated all of it... especially when he became part of it. There is a classic Rolling Stone cover that has Cobain wearing a shirt that says "Corporate Magazines Still Suck," his attempt to justify being on the cover of a magazine that represented everything that he hated at that moment in time. The only problem was he probably didn't hate it that much at all, sure he was pissed that he had sunk to the low of dumbing the world down even more but at least he was getting paid to do so. In the film we hear a snippet of an interview where Cobain talks about the pressures of putting out a new record and then goes on to say that he would gladly take a check written to him by the head of the label. Granted he said that because he was wanting to put some money away for his daughters' future, but the scene acts as a glimpse into the true meaning behind Kurt Cobain: he was a human being who was no better or worse than anyone else and had been just as brainwashed as the kids who were going to see him in concert. Cobain came to represent everything he was railing against when he first got into making music, that part everyone knows, but what no one really thinks about is the fact that it happened to him in a very Orwellian way. He was systematically broken down by the very system he hated. He came to love corporate America just as much as Winston came to love Big Brother at the end of "1984." I may be exaggerating a little, but not by much, Cobain was very much the prototypical anti-hero because of what he came to represent in later years. Gen-X imploded on itself by 1998: most of the people in Gen-X were starting to go to collage or graduating from it and going out into the real world, they would trade in their flannel shirt, ripped up jeans, and Doc Martin boots for a three piece suit. They would move out of that dingy, dank apartment and move into a two story house in the suburbs with their girlfriend or fiance and have a few kids. They would go on to become successful business men or women and forget about all the idealism that they had growing up in the time of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. They would all go on to become yuppies and their kids would grow up listening to music like Korn and Marilyn Manson who will someday become the music that they look back on and wonder where all the good music went. And their martyr, their man upon the cross, the man who was the voice of a generation shot himself in the head to die for all the sins they were about to create.
And all the while I'm here feeling nostalgic for the version of the 90's that I never had, never will have, and will never exist again. Next time I think I'll talk about the nostalgia that I have for the 90's I do remember.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
