My father on Sundays would sit in a swivel reclining lazy-boy, his head bent back over the back of the worn lining covered cushion, his mouth ajar and his legs and arms crossed as though to ward off unwanted entry. I would sit with my brothers and sisters on the couch, with my feet barely reaching passed the edge of the seat.

This was all part of our post-mass Sunday afternoon. My father would grow irritated during the sermon watching a couple of his children misbehaving. Without the power to punish them on-site, he would subtly pinch them under the arm and usher them outside where they could cry without him being immediately implicated as the cause.

He would return just in time for communion, his child a sniffling model of obedience and his eyes flashing to his other kids signaling that they could be punished next. After he got his compressed, hypoallergenic bread, we would drive home packed our station wagon or rusting van. He would barrage us with threats and insults for misbehaving in church was stain upon both his and our characters. That for less than an hour, we should be able to show respect in the house of God.

Once we were home we would all sit with our hands on our knees, so that they wouldn't attack each other, as my father would say. Meanwhile, he would finish reading his paper until he got bored. Then we would play "Encyclopedia Roulette" where each kid, regardless of being literate or not, would choose a volume from his "Funk and Wagnall" encyclopedia and read it.

He was unemployed for six years while he was making babies with my mother. She told me that during that time he never rested and rarely ever watched television. I asked her what he did and she told me he memorized the encyclopedia.

Anyway, I would always choose the "S" volume to read. I immediately flipped to the articles on sexual reproduction, sexual development and sex organs. Even at a tender age my libido was in control.

While I would quietly laughed to myself and showed the rest of the room pictures of reproductive organs, my father would doze off to sleep. We always knew when he fell asleep because his thin pursed lips would loosen and his jaw would fall. One by one my brothers and sisters would sneak away, tip-toeing outside to play.

I, usually being the one that caused my father to loose patience with us in the first place would remain seated on the couch until my guilt faded and I felt myself appropriately punished for my misbehavior. So I would sit there, reading scholarly porn, listening the his snoring and asking myself if I still feel guilty. Besides my father's presence, not much has changed.

I visited my brother at college last October. He was enrolled at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He drove about 40 miles east to the Shawnee National Forest. There we hiked a short trail to the Garden of the Gods.

For hours we climber these pillars of stone that extended out high above the forests of green, orange and red. We tested death by leaping from one pillar to the next over a fifty foot drop to the boulders below. We tested our bodies by climbing a towering wall of rock. By the time the sun was greeting the horizon we reached the summit.

Exhausted we both sat upon that rocky cliff overlooking the forest so beautifully painted below. A hint of campfire scented the air. The bashful breeze started to cool, bringing a welcomed numbing to our aching muscles.

And at that edge of land, we began to talk about our mutual interest of theoretical physics. While we were watching the sun disappear we believed we discovered the opposing force for gravity. It was so simple and made perfect sense. The end result of gravity is to create a singular point amongst all the matter in the universe, leaving the all as the pinnacle of order. The opposite is to create disorder by spreading everything out throughout the vastness of space and time, ending in the ultimate of disorder. The opposite force to gravity is therefore entropy.

We took the trail to the base and followed it to his car. Both of us tying this theory of ours to every other aspect of physics we studied, finding it a perfect fit. We drove in silence listening to the wind and the radio. A song by Pink Floyd rarely heard on the radio, entitled Fearless, came on the radio. I listened in reverie as we drove toward the purple and orange sky, hardly outrunning the stars that chased after us.

How could I possibly consider writing as a profession? I rely on scenery to far too great an extent in my mind, that it would be near impossible to translate my thoughts into linear thinking. I know that a writer can pain a picture with words, but to give each its due, I would have to write a novel's length for each instant. I should approach this with a Zen methodology, like some oriental paintings, spare the details but capture the essence. Describe just enough to carry the point across the page... Now there's the million dollar question: what's the point?

A father brings his child to an amusement park. They visit the playground together. He follows his kid throughout this castle of sanded wooden boards and plastic covered edges. His son reaches a rope bridge with a net below. Hesitantly, he steps onto the wobbly wooden planks. Once he is midway across the father steps on and wildly shifts his weight back and forth sending the rest of the rope bridge on a tumultuous and veering path. The little boy is stunned, screams and falls to his knees. Frenzied, he turns to see his father starting to jump up and down catapulting him to the end of the bridge. He scampers on to the opposite platform and looks back to see his father smiling. The boy scowls in return. Then, noticing all the people near the bridge shaking their heads at the man, the boy runs back into the middle of the bridge and begins to jump up and down. The father smiles brightly and continues his dance.

["Remember the guy on the bridge, he didn't give a fuck" ->DA]

I constantly see that most men are reluctant to display the slightest sign of weakness in the presence of women. Why is that? Does it tie into the recent survey finding that women are more attracted to men like George W. Bush as opposed to John Kerry or Gore? Are most women attracted not to intelligence, honesty and morality, but rather to resolve, self-assurance, confidence, wealth and an image of bravery, even to the extent of being fool hearty? Are these traits of attraction simply the qualities of the alpha-male that have proven to be a reproductive benefit over the past forty millennia? So what of those men that can choose between character traits that fit the alpha-male or those that will truly benefit mankind? Will they select the former for the security it will surely bring? Or will they sacrifice and be less attractive, less successful, and less wealthy because they consciously want to do what is right? I don't think many will given that choice.

A man suffering from dehydration, stranded on a deserted island, is trying to break open a coconut to get the milk inside. Each time he finally breaks one open the milk spills out pours into the sand below, lost forever. The man grabs another coconut and starts beating it with a rock. Is he alleviating his frustration or practicing persistence?

You may think of yourself as a scholar, a diplomat, a sage or a saint, but you are nothing unless it shows.

---

How unfortunate for those millions of tragic souls that simply weren't given a chance.

---

I AM NOT SILENT! I've written letters to newsapers, radio, government officials, television personalities, I've drawn political cartoons for newspapers, magazines and periodicals, I've submitted a sitcom screenplay to Bravo, and several others for various competitions throughout the country. I AM NOT SILENT!

---

I am however a criminal... Well, not really. A company [DataNATIONAL] provides a service of delivering leads (contact information) to marketing companies like my own. Our company signed up for a service from them to acquire an unlimited amount of leads, the only catch was that the leads had to be individually clicked upon in order for them to be downloaded, so the limit to the number of leads you can get was how fast you can click.

By human standards, this would limit the number we could download to around two thousand leads a day. I spoke with our salesman telling him that we had a call center which needed mass amounts of leads to support a staff of 30 call reps, making 600 calls each day. The salesman explained that [DataNATIONAL] needed someway to restrict the dataflow, otherwise the subscribers could download all the records they needed for their lifetime in a month and cancel the service right after. He told me that he could upgrade our service for a monthly fee and we could download en masse, blah, blah, blah...

I forwarded his offer to my supervisor and it was declined after I explained that there was a loophole allowing our company to get as many leads as we pleased. I found that the contract stated that we were entitled to as many leads as we could click, but it didn't prohibit an automated program from doing the clicking. My supervisor was happy to find the [DataNATIONAL]'s little scam wasn't airtight and told me to develop the application to extract the data in bulk.

By the next week I had made a program that accepted filter criteria, accessed [DataNATIONAL]'s lead site, parsed the data, and saved the appropriate leads to a formatted file ready for the dialer. I don't think that this application has any more ethical problems than does the misleading nature of the other company's advertising an "unlimited number of leads" as part of the subscription...

Enough about work!

Idea:

(Ryan Adams' "Good-night Hollywood Blvd.") And artist, just beginning to struggle with attaining recognition, is willing to do anything just to continue using his talents but can't find an outlet. He is forced to work at a dead-end job, burning that creative energy he wishes he could spend doing something that would utilize his talent. He imagines that even being exploited wouldn't be so bad if only he were able to hone his creativity. But his dreams diminish more and more as he suffers through the daily grind, and burning himself out after work and on the weekends as he tries to work on new material and get it "out there". His relationship with his girlfriend suffers as does that with his family. He feels the urge to abandon everyone he knows and every dream he holds. He wants to start over.

(Nirvana's Bowie cover "The Man Who Sold the World") Contrast that with a successful artist who comes to despise his industry and the end product of his work, for only his work that seems to fit an agenda gets attention. He realizes that his audience doesn't like him, but rather the messages of the few selected works chosen by people trying to mold his image. He feels as though, despite his success he is not in control of his life. He feels like an automaton, a cog in the wheel of a machine, or a marionette on strings. He finds that if he doesn't supply work fitting to a desire of his corner of the media, that his work doesn't get selected for display. He finds himself catering to these media moguls just to keep feeling the sense of accomplishment, even though he is repulsed by the products of his work. Eventually, even on his own time he can't seem to create an original work outside of his bounded image, as though his creativity was soaked up by his counterfeit efforts.

This successful artist feels that when he broke into the spotlight, he would do anything to get known, but now that he is, he can't break out of a mold that people have put him in. The selling out to get in leads to a habitual compromising of one's own ambitions for another's, until a either a loss of identity occurs or a disillusion clouds their original intent for pursuing artistic expression. But in either case originality diminishes.

The parallel for the successful artist is Kurt Cobain, although he chose to kill himself before the industry was able to destroy his sense of self. The struggling, starving artist was inspired by Ryan Adams and myself. He has maintained an air of being outcast to the music industry because he refuses to be so commercial, however I don't know if that is his own choice or that of decision makers. For me, its the utter failure to get recognition and disappointment that I pour into the first character. Unfortunately I have given up on trying to garner recognition. I have failed and I accept that I lack the courage to speak, so I remain contently SILENT!

One of my earliest memories is of my experience riding in a shopping cart. I remember how cold the metal frame was and how my hands always tasted like iron after touching it. I used to hate those carts that didn't have the thin plastic butt pad, forcing me to sit on those uncomfortable thin metal bars of the pull out seat. My bottom would always be sore after a trip through the supermarket.

I don't remember how old I was, but eventually the little seat could no longer hold me, and my mother was forced to let me climb all over the cart, the basket, the front, the sides and the underside. She would never allow me in the basket once she started piling items in there, but still it felt like I could play in there for so long.

I loved hanging onto the front as we raced down the aisles. And when I knew she would be rounding a corner I would shimmy to the side and lean away from the turn, compounding the centripetal force. There were a couple times where I fell off on the wrong side of a turn and my mother would scold me, telling me to never hang off the edge again, but I always did until she threatened me with sitting in the pull out seat. That usually made me mad and I would sit on the underside with my legs crossed pouting. That is until I realized how fun it was skimming over the tiles of the supermarket, pretending I was driving the cart myself.

At the checkout line I would always be dragged from underneath the cart, but by then it didn't matter, I had plenty of candy bars and bubble gum to grab my attention. My mother would rarely ever get me these treats, but I knew that if I whined for them, I wouldn't have a chance to get any at all.

Mrs. Bohannon, an elderly widow that lived down at the end of my block, died several weeks ago. Shortly after the death, her daughter, who hadn't visited in years, held an estate sale, emptying the woman's house of all the novelties and furniture her mother collected over the years. The daughter wasn't there for more than a week before she had the house sold to some investment company who immediately started to modernize the one story brick home.

They brought in a large dumpster and filled it with plasterboard, tiles, and other waste. And while carpenters were gutting the inside landscapers were transforming the outside. Today they had dug up a gigantic bush that had once stood proudly at the corner of the sidewalk and driveway. It had long since died.

Mrs. Bohannon, while she was alive, would take such precious care of that bush, having it fertilized once a week and watering it everyday. She knew it was quite fragile, but did everything she could to keep it from dying, that is until she did herself. For the last couple weeks of her life the only activity the neighborhood would see from her house would be around noon when Mrs. Bohannon would feebly walk with the hose to that bush to water it. When she stopped that we all knew she was in trouble. By the time the leaves on the bush turned yellow, she was already in the hospital.

I used to hate that bush. When I was younger I would mow her lawn for $5, while the rest of the neighborhood paid me $10. Mrs. Bohannon would also yell at me after I was finished that I damaged her plants and was killing her bush. This was no the case. That bush was a haven for wasps and I would avoid going near it at all times.

Once while mowing near the bush I got stung on the shin. Far beyond irritated, I turned the mower around and went after the bush. Mrs. Bohannon always watched me from her window, she never trusted me, and this time she came rushing out with her cane yelling for me to stop. The mower muffled her words and I didn't notice her until she hit me in the other shin with her cane. After that I never mowed her lawn nor talked to her again, and of course I wasn't paid.

Today, I took a walk passed her house and stopped by the large uprooted bush. The landscapers had clipped most of the branches and roots so it was hard to distinguish one from the other. It looked like an explosion of limbs caught in a stand-still. There was some soil trapped in the center, forming a ring dividing the roots from the branches. The limbs were rigid enough to support the rest of the bush, causing it to stand over four feet from bottom to top.

I saw a ladybug crawling along a limb away from the center. I tracked it for a while as it made its way toward where the limb was clipped. It stopped at the end and seemed reluctant to either turn around or fly away. I decided to help it out and flicked it off the limb, sending it soaring towards the dumpster. Somehow this little insect got its bearings and started to flutter its wings and it began to fly. I watched it until it was too far away and too small to see. Then I went on my way.

During the fall quarter of my fourth grade year at St.Pat's, it had to be 1989, my mother saved a young boy's life. This kid was the frequent target of abuse from the "in" crowd of boys in my sister's second grade class.

St.Pat's was a small school composed mostly of children from upperclass parents and the occasional, catholic beyond appearance, lower middle class family (like my own). Although all students were forced to wear uniforms the rich kids were able to spot an outsider with ease. If the shoes any brand lower than Docker, if the shirt was lower than Polo, if the pants aren't Perry Ellis, or if they are scuffed, or if there is dirt under the boys finger nails, or if his hair hasn't been cut in more than two weeks; all of these characteristics let the "haves" know who's a "have-not" or at least "has-less", which is just as bad.

This boy was a member of the "has-less" group, although it's not much of a group. Out of the thirty-some odd children in the class, there were probably four not-so-priviledged kids. But the designer clad boys didn't let this number advantage hamper their brutality. The class was divided into two factions: one bent on abusing the other, the other looking to be left alone. The tormenters were composed of the popular, good looking, athletic types, and at St.Pat's those characteristics coupled with high class and big money (often old money which is the worst kind) gave these boys the freedom to get away with murder... and they almost did.

On an October afternoon, Bobby C., the leader of the in-crowd, decided to pick a fight with the meek, quiet boy, Eric who spent most of his lunch periods with his nose in a book and his recesses walking the perimeter of the parking lot until he would hear the bell ring.

Earlier that day, Bobby was chosen to answer a long division question on the chalk board in class. Not being concerned with academic achievement, Bobby rarely put forth an effort to do more than merely get by, so he put down an incorrect answer. The teacher, probably assuming that brilliance compounded as immunity, asked Eric to go to the board and correct the mistakes. Shyly he rose, and with a reddened face he erased Bobby's answer and quickly chalked in his own. As Eric slinked back to his desk, the teacher quipped to Bobby that he should ask Eric to be his tutor. Eric stared at his worn and faded trousers, avoiding the menacing look from Bobby.

Bobby held his grudge throughout the morning. By lunch time he had spread rumors that he was going to beat up Eric. Along with the rest of the in-crowd, Bobby went to Eric's lunch table in the corner. The lunch monitors were on the opposite end of the room, no doubt gossiping, and not paying attention to the kids. Eric tried to ignore the taunting, but this just infuriated Bobby even more. He picked up Eric's milk, loosened his mucus and spit it in the mouth of the carton. He placed it in front of Eric and told him to drink it. The other boys chanted to Eric to "slam the clam". Eric finally reacted to the pressure and slapped the milk carton from in front of him and it splashed all over Bobby's shirt.

The lunch monitors took notice and rushed over to find Bobby soaked and Eric all flushed and red. They immediately scolded Eric and gave him a pink slip (a reprimand that precedes a detension) and sent him to the principal's office, where he stayed until the end of the lunch period.

Eric didn't want this feud to continue so he took the blame without excusing his action. The principal said that he was too bright a student to act up, and that he should focus the frustration he might experience with classmates into his studies. He was given a detention to be served at the end of the day and then told to behave himself during recess. He was silently hoping that he would be forced to sit in the office instead of being sent outside. He got his jacket and left for the parking lot.

He wasn't outside more than five minutes before he was accosted by Bobby and three of his friends. Bobby put his arm around Eric and forcefully led him to a corner of the building, out of the sight of the recess monitors. Once there Bobby's friends took hold of Eric's arms as Bobby started to punch him in the stomach. Eric fought back the best he could without the use of his arms and eventually kicked Bobby in the mouth, cutting his lip.

Bobby was enraged and took Eric to the ground and started to strangle him (only to "scare" him as Bobby admitted later). One of the other boys had brought a jump rope and tossed it to Bobby who wrapped it around Eric's neck. Bobby had the other boy hold Eric down as he tied the free end of the rope into a noose and threw it over a light fixture.

Eric was frantic and was trying to cry for help, but the boy on top of him bunched Eric's jacket up over his head and pressed down to muffle the sound. He tried to wriggle free but the boy had his knees on his arms and was sitting on his chest. Eric was trapped.

Bobby asked the other boy not holding Eric down to help him pull the jump rope and drag Eric up the wall, but the boy finally felt the gravity of the situation and ran off. Bobby called him a "pussy" and started to pull the rope himself. He was strong enough, that with a couple of tugs Eric was off the ground and clutching his neck. He then hooked the noose onto a door knob.

Bobby and the other boy were standing there laughing as Eric was fighting for breathe and clawing at the wall hoping to take the weight off his neck. As he started to change color, the boy that had been holding Eric down started to worry and was about to lift Eric up. But Eric was writhing and flailing his legs and kicked the other boy in the face, sending him to the ground with a bloody nose. Bobby didn't know what to do and took off around the building.

It was then that my mother rounded the corner. Her shift had ended the period before and she was walking to her car when she saw the boy that refused to pull the rope run around the building looking frightened and decided to walk over to check out what scared him. She came to see Eric almost blue in the face and a boy on the ground crying and holding his nose. Immediately, she grabbed Eric's by the legs and hoisted him up. She could hear him gasp as he was able to get some air despite the taught rope. Positioning Eric to be held with one hand, and with the other she worked to unhook the other end of the rope. After some struggling, she worked it free and Eric collapsed on top of her in a panting heap.

She brought Eric to the nurse and she treated the rope burn around his neck. He was still very pale, but his breathing had gone back to normal. She asked the nurse where the principal was and learned that she had left for lunch. My mother then left for the parking lot.

She found the boy with the bloody nose standing near his friends and asked him who was responsible for hanging Eric. The boy said nothing but was furtively looking at Bobby. Bobby was leaning non-chalantly against the wall, not seeming the least bit disturbed nor paying any attention to my mother. She walked over to Bobby and asked if he did it, to which he replied with a smirk that Eric "hung himself".

My mother could no longer contain herself. She slapped him hard against the face. The first slap stunned Bobby, by the second he started to protect himself and called her a bitch, but after the third tears were streaming down his face. She grabbed Bobby by the hair and dragged him to the principal's office as he cursed at her the entire way.

Once in the office the principal's secretary separated Bobby from my mother's grasp. The principle arrived shortly thereafter, to find my mother fuming about what had happened. After hearing the story she sent for Eric, who with a raspy voice confirmed that Bobby had hung him. Bobby objected saying that it was Eric's idea and that they were just playing. The principal brought Bobby to her office to call his parents.

My mother remained with Eric in the waiting room for sometime, trying to make him feel comfortable and lessen the fear that was surely building inside of him. The principal came out with Bobby looking emotionless by her side of the office and told Eric to go back to the nurse and wait for his parent's to come and pick him up. She then had Bobby sit down and summoned my mother to her office.

The office was quite large. At one side there was a wide oak desk below a painting of the first principal of St.Pat's, Dr.Louis Richards, on the other was a large crucifix with a grimacing Christ hanging from the cross.

My mother sat down opposite the desk with the principal behind it. They went over the details of the "incident" again. After the principle asked my mother what happened after she brought Eric to the nurse. She explained finding the boy with the nose bleed, slapping Bobby and dragging him to her office by the hair. When asked why she used such brutality when dealing with Bobby, my mother said that given the situation the boy deserved much worse. The principal asked if my mother had actually seen Bobby hang Eric and she said she hadn't. With that she said that there was no proof he had and since Bobby is denying it, it would be one boy's word against another's and that the school couldn't punish him severely without proof.

My mother was shocked and asked how Bobby was to be punished. The principal replied that it would be up to the parents to punish him. She added that Bobby and Eric were to attend peer mediation sessions after school for two weeks. Still stunned by the turn of events, my mother asked how she arrived at her decision. The principal answered that it was her idea and that Bobby's parents were in complete agreement.

With her temper rising my mother started to accuse the principal of going soft and catering to the already catered. The principal didn't enjoy the truth being pointed out to her and explained that my mother was lucky that Bobby's parents didn't press charges against her for slapping their child. She added that the parents were major donors to the school and church and that to expel Bobby would be detrimental to the budget since so many families were on tuition assistance (implying my mother's family and Eric's).

My mother shook her head, giving the principal a contemptuous glare, and turned to leave. Leaving the office she met Bobby's eyes, and her stomach turned when she noticed the sly smile on his face. She fought the impulse to slap this child again, and walked briskly out towards the exit of the school.

That winter Bobby's family donated money to install wood flooring for the entire gymnasium. That same winter Eric's parents pulled him out of St.Pat's and sent him to public school. My family left the school and the church the next year over a different incident. I'll tell that story some other time.

I have a habit of skipping logical steps as I write to myself in these little log entries. This is a growth impeding habit and leads to a lack of coherence in my writing. If I ever decide to fully follow through with my aspiration to write something of content, then I need to quit this habit. I can't assume that the points that I skip over are so apparent that they don't need mentioning.

What becomes of a person that abides by those positive principles of human interaction, that have been touched upon by Buddha, Jesus and even Nietzsche? Will they ever find happiness?

Dostoevsky presumed that following such a path in the western world would drive one into a catatonic state. Camus implied that the end result of such principles would lead to the absurd. J.D. Salinger expressed that one of such a position would end up losing their sanity (ie. The Catcher in the Rye).

All of Salinger's works expose spiritual conflicts that are inevitable when one joins the modern society. Regarding The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger expresses the notion that the golden rule is obsolete. Holden Caulfield's main frustration was that every person he encountered was phony, a fake, a lie unto themselves.

If someone won't be honest to themselves then they can't follow the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." One who is false to themselves would rationalize that under certain circumstances it could be supposed that they would prefer to be treated harshly, and even if they wouldn't prefer a harsh treatment immediately, one day the receiver of such punishment would think back and appreciate the "lesson."

This insincerity is a problem that plagues all humanity, not just the upperclass of upper Manhattan. How can one follow the golden rule in this age of social overload? How could we possibly have the time and mental energy available to analyze and interpret other people's positions to decide how we would like to be treated given the other's situation?

Instead we rely upon short cuts, reducing the effort needed to truly follow the golden rule by using the guidelines of justice and protocol. Why bother delving into the psyche of the criminal to find out the background behind them committing a crime and what reaction is most suitable when you could employ precedence to determine a verdict and move on to the next case?

But with this method there is no guaranteeing that the reaction would have any moral impact. Where one person may be corrected with a mere reprimand for lying, another may need their tongue cut off.

With this, the idea of a defending and prosecuting lawyer is bazaar. Currently a prosecuting lawyer will work to inflict the harshest punishment upon the accused, the defending lawyer will work to either convince others of the accused's innocence or attain the least punishment.

So, what if the defendant feels extreme pangs of guilt? "Sorry your honor, I know that the maximum penalty for shoplifting is one year in prison, but my client requests to be punished to the extent of amputating his hand."

I guess the legal system has safe guards to protect a person from themselves. If someone needs protection from themselves then obviously they aren't being genuine to their interests, given the altruism that "no one prefers pain to pleasure." And if someone doesn't agree with that statement, then they cannot abide by the golden rule.

I guess that teaching of Buddha and Jesus, doesn't take into account the masochists of the world. Or is it that the masochists simply are incapable of being honest to themselves that pleasure is better than pain? Either way, another rule must be created.

Quotes from J.D. Salinger

The human voice conspires to desecrate everything on earth.

No one goddamn person, of all the patronizing, fourth rate critics and column writers, had ever seen him for what he really was. A poet, for God's sake. And I mean a poet.

I happen to know, possible none better, that an ecstatically happy writing person is often a totally draining type to have around. Of course, the poets in this state are by far the most "difficulty," but even the prose writer similarly seized hasn't any real choice of behavior in decent company; divine or not, a seizure's a seizure. And while I think an ecstatically happy prose write can do many good things on the printed page - the best things, I'm frankly hoping - it's also true, and infinitely more self-evident, I suspect, that he can't be moderate or temperate or brief; he loses very nearly all his short paragraphs.

Where do my traits originate? Are they modes of behavior that had gained dominance over generations in the genes of my ancestors? And now, as I behave with a sort of consistency, do I rationalize those behaviors as derived from my experience as opposed to my genes? Lets looks at this personal Nature vs Nurture battle.

I am Bohemian. I enjoy depressing music, dark imagery, neurotic literature, truth and beauty mainly when it's expressed with lies and the grotesque. I don't want to be ordinary at anything I do. I am slightly paranoid and have little faith in those people that are so frequently relied upon for security and maintaining ones interests (like teachers, police officers, executives, doctors, lawyers, politicians, government officials, priests, etc...). I am critical of the arts - accusing anything that is unoriginal as a waste of the viewers time. I don't respect the idea of majority rules. I loathe what is common, but often I wish to blend into the background. Death terrorizes and enchants me. I distrust all, supposedly, altruistic acts, although I often perform them myself. I can't help but deny any helping hand... And I hate myself if I look too closely. Life is disappointing.

I am Italian. I love the pleasures of the flesh. Once I find a faith in god, I will thank it for such a lovely vehicle to use on this brief journey through paradise. I love the warmth of the day and the cold of the night. Every night I die, leaving behind me all my grudges, annoyances, animosity and fears. Every morning I am reborn to conquer new grounds of existence. I enjoy music as it ties into the harmony of life. I become absorbed in the magic that surrounds me, and I breathe it in and let it carry me away. I bask in the light and explore its continuum. I love my fellow man for we are all one both as enemies and friends. I commit to love and abandon myself in another. I indulge the sensations from food to drink, sight to sound, and thought to touch. I experience rapture in great works of art, architecture and song. I revel in the majesty of the works of man as much as I do in the works of nature. I love life.

I am Irish. I see the beauty in destruction. All my sorrows are easily quenched with a drink or ten. Temptation is a constant foe and a beast that I can never turn my back upon. The moment often overwhelms me and my impulses often override my common sense and good judgment. Occasionally I get so wound up that I can't seem to focus my efforts on any one task, rather I take on every problem simultaneously until I can't cope with the stress and I abandon them all, making things worse than when I started. My calm demeanor and even temper are more the result of a guilty conscience than a good upbringing. I tend to revolt for the mere sake of revolution. I consider the social contract between authority and subjects demands contempt and uprising. I often settle a score with passion rather than rationality. The only thing that happens to be more insatiable than my selfish greed is my own libido. Life is driving me mad.

I am Polish. I am a hard worker. I can focus on the same task for hours at a time and even days when the situation requires and my inspiration maintains. I am steadfast and bullheaded. Often times I place myself on a pedestal for my forbearance and endurance. I am egocentric at times and often unfeeling. Coldness is the reaction of choice when frustrated. I uphold the double standard because of tradition. I can't help but believe that some things should always remain constant regardless of better judgment. I find myself attributing behavior and make generalization based upon biases and I ignoring causality. I sometimes have a disregard for what is good taste or what is proper protocol. Life is a struggle.

It loved to happen and I love to be...

I am reading Salinger again, only this time it's not The Catcher in the Rye. I've read Franny and Zooey and am currently reading Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction. After this book I plan to read his collection of short stories entitled, Nine Stories (quite imaginative). I enjoy his works tremendously. It's like a continuous stream of thought; no abrupt transitions, no unbelievable switch from one topic to the next, and no gratuitous prose. His stories lack the evidence of deliberation unlike most other books. Deliberation is artificial, it is as I've said before, contemptuous. Deliberation robs literature of rhythm and harmony. It makes a reader feel manipulated and leaves a sort of deceptive flavor in the mouth of the reader. Honesty is the key to avoiding deliberation, the writer must write only what he or she considers truth. Being able to look at your own writing objectively is the key to avoiding this downfall.

Work: I was given $100 this afternoon for doing such a "great job" by Andrea (the reptile). This reward was really a guilt inducer. We have been on such a tight budget for months. I've been forced to scrounge for spare parts from broken PC's in order to repair other PC's. I've had to distribute the back up storage over our network because we haven't been able to upgrade our server hard drives. I feel like Dr.Frankenstein. Anyway, somehow she came up with enough to give me a bonus. Granted, I was shorted $170 on my last check because we had to double up our quarterly payment to the government due to the our old HR company's criminal negligence with paying taxes, but I didn't complain about it when it happened, for I was told that our recent invoices wouldn't be able to meet the increased taxes and still make payroll. So I considered myself lucky that it was such a low reduction on my pay check. But still, I have this odd feeling of guilt for getting this $100 back. I'll just have to keep in mind that I'm still owed $70 on my paycheck, plus $30 for backup tapes, $20 for replacement mice, $15 for replacement keyboards, $10 for printer paper, etc...

I bought the Kinks' Greatest Hits today...
...And I don't want to live my life like everybody else,
and I won't say that I am fine like everybody else
cause I'm not like everybody else...

Idea: Create a company that commits criminal acts, like a repo company that reposseses items from people that haven't defaulted on any payment. Its like giving yourself a license to steal. This idea came from an actual company that I dealt with at work. We had an HR service that would take care of the paying taxes to the government, pay insurance costs and write our checks, all for a small percentage fee. So we were all getting checks from this company and it showed on the checks how much money was deducted for benefits and taxes, so we had no worries. But, after an employee tried to use the health insurance they supposed they had, they found that they couldn't get the insurance carrier to pay the bill. There was some back and forth accusations for some time, but eventually the HR service provider suddenly seemed to disappear. We got another provider, but these insurance claims never were resolved and eventually my company looked into the problem and found that no payments were sent to the insurance provider and that every employee was dropped from the plans. We also found out that the taxes to the government were not paid. The company went ahead with litigation but the contacts for the HR service could not be reached and as far as we could go with litigation without them being represented was a ruling stating that we had grounds to sue this HR service provider. We hired a private investigator to try to track down this phantom company, but they were nowhere to be found. It turned out that the person who incorporated the HR service provider was no longer in the country and that the contacts for the company must have been using fictitious names. Later on a law firm contacted us regarding taking part in a class action lawsuit, but as the proceedings continued, without a defendant, the case could only go so far. So the hundred or so plaintiffs, had to pick up the pieces, pay the government for taxes they thought were paid and have their employees eat the losses for the medical bills. The government never seemed to take the initiative to track these criminals down - it was always up to us. I love how white collar crime in this country is so ignored by those who try to enforce the laws.

Topic for a book: Hell's Survival Guide. How to make the most of you God damned enternity.

Tip One: Scar tissue is your friend.
Remember when your strolling beside firey pits or being tortured by Satan's minions in vats of boiling oil, that scar tissue is your friend. Sure you may lose a bit of sensitivity and you may never feel a person tap on your back, but hey, who needs those bothersome annoyances anyway? Don't forget, the best scars come if you repeatedly burst your blisters. Don't be afraid of the puss and blood. Think of it as a protective coating when it dries into a yellow, brown or black flacky scab. We encourage you to pick those very same scabs. You can save them to form a ball that you can play with or eat. After all, with a diet of scalding water and brimstone, a little change is a welcome change now matter how disgusting. Remember you have eternity there, so make it interesting every day.

Tip Two: Being thrown from a cliff to a rocky doom is a good thing.
One thing you should always keep in mind in hell is that those minions that inflict such pain so ruthlessly, were damned to hell just like you. And that means they're most likely lazy. So when they drag you by the feet across a field of broken glass towards a cliff, don't resist, this is actually better fate. Sure, these demons are going to heave and ho and toss you below, but think about the bright side, those little buggers probably won't rappel down the side of that cliff so drag you up and toss you over again. I know what you're thinking, you're going to be a gnarled and mangled mess all alone in the darkness and depths of a cavern. First of all nobody is going to see you. Hell, you won't be able to see yourself. And second, with all that alone time to heal while your shattered bones reform into a zigzag pattern that only Picasso (and he's here too) can appreciate, you can use that time to discover sensory deprivation. With such time you'll probably morph into a proto-human and climb right out of that cave, and then you can romp about hell raising hell. Trust me when I say that the Devil will be proud of you. Hell, he'll probably give you a job as a minion. So always remember that being tossed to a rocky doom is a good thing.

Tip Three: Screaming and crying is for suckers.
This is a literal tip. See when you scream and shot miniscule amounts of water vapor escape from you lungs. And when you cry these things call tear ducts release a fluid the pours from the corners of your eyes and occassionally your nose. One thing every resident of hell learns is that water is an important resource. Besides scalding water and plumes of stream rising from craters, there isn't much water that hasn't been evaporated down here, so one must learn to conserve every bit of water they can, and that means so crying or screaming. Because if you do you're most likely going to end up sucking the sweat from both your own body and that of others. Sure it's gross, but remember it's hell.

Tip Four: Kissing ass only bruises your nose.
Most people think that when the get tossed into hell that they'll be alright because they're on Satan's side. So these damned people make a bee-line to that Old Devil thinking they can flatter him and get on his good side. Now Lucifer may have been created as an angel but time has turned him into quite a devil. So he has these kiss ups line up to kiss his rear, and right when they pucker up, Satan kicks them with his goat feet right in the nose, sending them sailing from his thrown upon the highest stalagmite. I'm sure you've all seen pictures on bodies impaled upon stalagmites, well if you look closely you'll see each of those writhing corpses has a bruised imprint in the shape of a hoof upon their noses. So it is recommended to stay clear of the big boss Beelzebub.

The question comes to mind: what is the flavor of today? Sure its autumn so there is a saltiness in the air, but in the larger yearly picture. There is an overwhelming amount of distrust. People have been fooled by politicians, by the media, by religious leaders. The government has exaggerated, mislead and lies to us. Politicians are puppets to large organizations and interest groups and make false promises to get into office. The news delivers prescribed messages fed to them by political bodies. Reality television is often found to be fixed or edited to suite an agenda. Nothing and nobody is trustworthy. This is an age of propaganda of which justifies paranoia. The devil reigns and the trusting suffer and fall until soon there will be none left except the skeptical. We live in hell with no direction out... Tastes like its getting too salty and about to get bitter.

There is a flavor to the world. Every moment, every situation and every place add to the flavor; making it more bitter, saltier, sweeter, sour or savory. This flavor is fleeting and hard to detect if you don't chew up the moment and take sensitive and delicate observation. Take the beginning of Salinger's Franny and Zooey. A cold and crisp autumn afternoon. A young man waiting alone on the platform of a train station reading a letter from the girl he will soon be meeting. While everyone else is waiting for the train to arrive huddled together in the warmth of the station house, this man is anxiously awaiting this girl outside in the wind, smoking a cigarette. The sense that winter is impending gives the flavor of a transition between savory and bitter. And sure enough, this flavor, or rather, hint of a flavor is materialized when Franny meets this man and the bitterness takes hold. That day on the platform was sunny despite the cold, the letter from his girlfriend, which sustained his interest and eagerness to meet this girl, was no more assurance than the sun slowly setting in the southwestern sky, that the moment would remain to be savored. The letter and the sun were one in the same. This ties into the whole Zen eastern ideology of impressions based upon the seasons. But there is an extra flavor that can reside in each season and that is savory. Adding this umami flavor to correspond with the world adds a whole other level of contrast depiction between flavors. Salinger seems to focus on the summer to fall theme, or the savory to salty to savory to bitter to savory transition. I personally prefer that to any other, although Dostoevsky captures the savory to bitter to savory to sour to savory to sweet transition quite well. Anyway, enough of this flavor, season, zen talk... I'm going to order some Chinese food... Heavy on the oyster sauce Buddha!

Zoloft, Prozac, Lithium... not my answer. I enjoy having a non-chemical means of lifting my depression. I know the effect of the drugs would be like climbing out of the water onto a styrofoam raft rather than reach dry land. Sure the chemically induced states can provide a transport to dry land, but without the real effort you're bound to just going running back into the waves. True people feel at peace while on these drugs but I know that if I took them that the moment the drug would wear off I would ridicule myself for being such a statistic; as though being depressed is a priviledge and the only real means out of it is only by the will of the self and no more... maybe a proper diet. Depression is an experience that should not be avoided or masked over by induced bio-chemical response. I personally hate knowing that I am but only flesh, no more, no less!

Religion is a weapon wielded by the demagogues to maintain their power and suppress efforts to change. Religion isn't the opium of the people, rather its their secret enemy keeping them down while encouraging them to accept their lot willingly. How clever these power players are.

Why is it that I find writing in smaller journals so much easier to do? Is it because the smaller size makes the log entries less intimidating to finish since I feel so inclined to always fill a page to completion? Is the cute size more inviting? Why am I asking you? You're just a little journal and nobody will ever read you besides me. So since I came up with those questions they must be the answer.

Some women need to understand that the era from post WWII until 9/11 was a blessing. A few were able to avoid a harsh reality of this sick world to which we belong. Now we must understand that reality forbids such freedom of choice and we must all work harder and split the efforts of home and career evenly, regardless of our biases. Men shouldn't feel that they can get by solely as a bread-winner. They must be responsible for themselves with household chores and outside tasks. This assembly line of the household where one spouse makes the widget and the other makes the whatzet and the children put them together, does not allow for a 21st century couple to make it today. There are barriers to acquiring basic resources that can only be overcome if we work together. There is no rest for the loving.

I can't hold back my midwestern cynicism, skepticism, pessimism and paranoia any longer. The USA is beginning to feel the sensations of the fall of a super power; a loss of balance, frequent episodes of vertigo, the stomach tightens, the muscles tense, the eyes shut and the jaw clamps down. I really have to start learning mandarin before the bandwagon leaves the station.

The first of three scheduled debates between Bush and Kerry was aired today. We are doomed. Kerry is trying to hard to court voters and Bush is a menace to the country. Kerry choose a dimwitted pretty boy as a vice president and Bush has a war mongering profiteer. I'd rather not vote for either. Why couldn't McCain see that adopting a dark child would provide leverage for an opportunist to exploit the racial biases of the gun carrying, bible totting, racist right-wingers that dominate the red states? Why couldn't this government be for the people? Why can't the people get upset over blatantly wrong actions and legislation performed on behalf of our government? Why can't there be less wolves in this forest?

Problems:

• Too much to say and not enough time to focus on an issue until closure is met, leaving everything in life unfinished.


• So many goals that its hard to decide where to begin.


• I keep changing the perspective.

Solutions:

• Use those past failures as opportunities to accomplish something to completion. I need to start a new habit, one in which I thrive not by the "doing" but by the "finishing".


• Build off something I already started. I have plenty of incomplete projects to choose from. Start there and decide on the project that inspires you most.


• Keep to the first person perspect by using me,I, and myself more.

Are Americans that desperate that they would exploit the rest of the world in order to improve their own situation? The lack of ethics on the part of executives is appalling. I see some rationalization for the decisions they make. If US companies didn't take advantage of foreign labor then a foreign company would and even if no other business takes advantage of the opportunity, then those that are employed overseas would be worse off with less opportunities for employment and most likely lower income. The problem is that those companies that are exploiting this foreign labor force are terminating their American employees. Now how will the American consumer be able to purchase these products if their income level decreases by such an amount? Sure it helps level the playing field between the foreign labor forces and those at home, but in the meantime it is the executives that profit. Its as though we are reverting to a feudal society again but instead of lords we have executives. This trend cannot continue forever but right now it is actually worsening. Service jobs, technical jobs, manufacturing jobs are all being offshored. The only positions not hit are experts, analysts, research and development and of course the executives. It is only a matter of time before the people of the country being exploited decide to take on the roles currently exclusively American. Then all that will remain in the job market are jobs for doctors, lawyers, government officials and a sea of low end service positions. But even then, the higher level jobs aren't guaranteed. Foreign attorneys specializing in American law can review cases and perform litigation remotely. Doctors in India could have nurses in America perform exams and transmit the results for a prognosis which would result in a mail order prescription being sent to the patient or a second tier examination with a local doctor. I think that even the government is not completely immune to the outsourcing phenomenon. Imagine a country that bids upon a contract to house criminals, they would have tele-parole hearings, be represented by foreign lawyers well versed in US criminal law. An overseas firm could validate IRS forms, investigate suspected fraud via electronics discovery. Sensors on cars would determine traffic violations, jurors would tele-conference from all corners of the globe, lobbyists would bid on contracts to represent interests of companies, representatives would employ the services of foreign firms to write bills as would interest groups, military would become more and more privatized until the only director of military operations with a government post would be the commander and chief and his cabinet, judges would send legal documents overseas for interpretation, no job would be truly safe. These government resource management firms would encapsulate the tasks of the government into a turnkey operation and these firms would compete amongst themselves for contracts to major government bodies. These firms would eventually provide a self governing service which would initially secede from a nation, charter their own and engineer a local authority and economy that would be independent of anything except foreign labor (similar to that of Singapore). The world would divide into rural, third-world like, countries and city-states. Imagine one day I could be living in the nation of Chicago.

The shark ethic prevails - eat the wounded.

In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught.

In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

--> Hunter S. Thompson

The problem with the world is that shipping is too reliable and efficient. There really is no real detriment to exploiting overseas labor. The governments of foreign nations that we exploit don't have the same laws regarding fair pay, ethical treatment of employees, and discrimination.

American companies are taking advantage of the low wages of foreign employees. What is the point of having a minimum wage in our own country when US countries opt to employ a foreign labor force? Why have child labor laws in the US when our companies use children overseas to make our products? Why have workplace safety standards here when the conditions in a third world nation do without them (hence lower operating costs).

We are at a critical point in the free market where the lack of ethics proves to be profitable. What is the solutions? The world has reached the point whereas the international corporations will resist removing the exploitation ingredient from their business diet.

There is a dependency upon this oppressed workforce. It seems as though the US abolished slavery in the states only to pick it up across the border. Companies are addicted to this no different than a druggie is to dope. Send the world to rehab!

I just remembered a time at ISU when I just enrolled. I had moved in and met Klick and Dan a couple weeks prior. Klick was out of town and I had finished all my programming assignments for the weekend by Thursday and was feeling quite restless sitting in my dorm all alone drinking beer and watching HBO.

I decided to go visit Dan. His roommate at the time was Tom McSweeney who visited for a short while, saw Dan and I, expressed his disappointment that the room wasn't available for him to have sex with his girlfriend Jen, and then he grabbed his toilettries and left for her single dorm at Watterson towers.

When I first arrived I realized that I was unexpected and that Dan probably had other plans for the night. Plans that undoubtedly would permit my presence, however, being the cordial and proper Catholic that he is, he didn't mention anything to me (for the time being) and we decided to go in on a bottle of Permafrost (a peppermint liquor of considerable strength).

We walked to the liquor store with limited conversation. After purchasing the bottle we walked back with the same uncomfort and awkwardness which continued until we each took a shot. Then we were off. From that moment my memory is quite hazy however it was not a blackout by any measure.

We discussed many subjects within which I felt versed and almost an authority of matters. A couple of times the topics swayed into his area of expertise but we eventually found a mutually interesting topic to which we were both adept, spirituality. I gave him my lecture on the creation and destination of the universe, citing Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman and noteable intellects from history as often I could manage without being excessively ostentatious. Mind you the bottle we were drinking was 160 proof.

We arrived on the topic of what constituted a sin. I explained sin in regards to the whole (universe and moreso life itself) as being any action that accelerates the decay or diminishes the longevity of the whole. Meaning that inefficiency, waste and disregard for the future were all primary sins.

We then decided to figure out between the tow of us what the good life entailed. I started by stating that eudymonia could only be achieved by fusing the spiritual and the physical life by realizing that they are one in the same. He disagreed on this point. His religious background was obviously stronger than my own and forebade this thinking; that everything is blessed by god and that the only limits to spiritual growth arrise from a rigidity of thinking.

I started to babble about the science supporting my ideas. First I explained that the blessed attribute of mankind is that we have millions of neurons that observe events, from a packet of light hitting a cone in the retina, to flavor, to hearing, to smell, to heat, to touch, and even to neurons that sense the states of other neurons (the key to conscious thought). Each interconnection creates a broader model of the environment within our own minds, but the true source of what is special is simply observation.

The act of observation is the glorious bond between matter and energy. Energy as itself is a wave, acts like a wave, travels as a wave, but once it interacts with matter it becomes a particle with all the properties therein. The interaction is the observation. Without observation there could be no life. I told him that all matter observes, hence everyTHING (matter) is blessed by god.

He was still very skeptical but respected my opinion ever since then. Before that day I don't think I said more than a couple of "hello"'s and "good-bye"'s to him, but afterward we discussed the deepest and most controversial topics with no reservations. All because of a catalyst...

Permafrost!!! [that is the answer] ---> inside joke :)

What would happen if you could send messages back in time to yourself? Decisions that are immediately good may become bad and vice versa, so the end result would be the voiding out of any interfence from future influence. Nothing would change.

I am certain that I could develop a new idea. A new idea could be an original arrangement of pre-existing ideas. For instance, imagine a graduate student at Berkley that develops a technique to send a message back in time by entangling electrons and changing the spi so you are able to detect the changes in the past. He figures out that according to the theories the technique should work, however, whenever he tests his predictions he only recieves random data. He is about to abandon his research when he decides to add another electron to the entanglement, and once he changes the spin of that electron he starts to observe spin changes in a non-random sequence, meaning that he is receiving a message from the future. Inspired he works through the night validating the data, making tests and validating his observations. A week later he is preparing his research for publishing when a government agency accosts him and confinscates all of his lab equipment. After months of incarceration in a government building he is allowed to leave. Meanwhile an obscure agency of the government has exploited his work for their own gain and has involved the country in a dilema that has made the world much worse off. He returns to Berkley to find his original equipment returned. He realizes that he has an obligation to correct the situation. Ge sets up the equipment again and jumbles the sequence of spins on the electrons to create a random nonsense message to be received in the past. Then the past gets changed and he is back in his lab finding that the electron that he just added to the entanglement still yields random data. After a while he considers adding yet another electron to the entanglement.

I am a strong believer in the ability to reproduce an outcome if a strict adherence to establishing identical preconditions is followed. So this creates a problem with the goal stated above. First, most original thoughts are developed upon a whim, a capricious fancy that inevitably is identified as a novel concept.

goal #1: Develop a new idea...

Before I was a dedicated blogger, I regularly made log entries in journals. It first began when I was in junior high. I always had a hard time going to sleep, and my parents wouldn't allow me to watch television or make noise that would wake up either them or my five brothers or three sisters, so I was forced to find silent activities to fill my nights; at least until I would pass out from exhaustion around three o'clock.

I would occasionally write letters to people, mostly my family but also politicians, famous people, muses from school, people in history. I would steal stamps from my father and mail them. I got a kick out of sending Napoleon a letter at Waterloo, Jesus at Jerusalem and Siddhartha under the fig tree. I would put all the return addresses as the Lune of the Sun, Epicenter of the Solar System.

My primary activity was reading. This provided ample entertainment and challenges, for I would often read based upon the difficulty of the material. I became excited as to how quickly I was able to assimilate information. I would read a book almost every night at first, but as the content grew more complex that rate slowed accordingly. I went from reading Steven King to Nietzsche in a matter of months.

I eventually found a middle ground that I was comfortable with and developed an affinity for certain authors like Dostoevsky, Salinger and Camus, amongst others. I was given the publication of the notebooks of Camus as a Christmas present and I thought it was a marvelous idea that I should record my thoughts just as these people had in the past. I thought it would help me bond with these minds that I had come to idolize.

I dedicated a math notebook as my first journal. I filled it with letters, rants and mind garbage while I left around ten pages for a year's notes (I wrote very small notes and would use the same sheet of paper for about a dozen assignments, my teacher hated me but couldn't deny my efficiency).

Since then I have always had journals and filled them with regularity. For about 4 years I went through a brief bout of depression-I called it self rebellion. At that time I refrained from everything that made me happy and comfortable. I would force myself into foreign situations where I had no idea how to react. I kept doing this until I figured that I strayed enough from who I was and that it was now time to find a middle ground. Luckily my journaling became a part of that middle ground.

I picked up where I left off but wasn't able to log with such regularity for now I had a social life, a love life, a family life, an academic life, a career all to juggle simultaneously. And having such pressures hasn't allowed me the time to be incredibly moody and in a cool blue seclusion as I had been so frequently before I sold my life to obligations. But I still found time to jot down entries here and there.

Sometimes I look back on these logs and wonder if anyone else would even be interested in reading what went on in my head throughout my life. Recently I decided to make each physical log into a blog. This provides three solutions: 1.) I would have these entries in a data format which is easily tranferable and preserved, 2.) It allows me a sort of electronic autobiography, and 3.) I can satisfy the mental expositionist urge and lay myself down before all the prying eyes both critical and uplifting.

So with much ado, I will begin the task of transferring the little black log into this blog.