Oct 26, 2003

I finally started writing again! Here's a sample (Keep in mind that it sucks, but it's still exciting to me):

I know it’s been a while since the question was initially posed, but it’s got to be answered at some point. Have we yet deduced who, in fact, let the dogs out in the first place?

That’s one thing I really love about hip hop. More than any other genre of music, they’re prepared to ask inane questions and make demands on an audience nobody else would ever conceive of. I recall Kris-Kross wanting us to “Jump, Jump,” as it were. Live shows are the worst though. Don’t get me wrong, I like hip hop, but when I go to a show, I want the guys I’m paying to see to do the work, you know? “Who’s house?” I don’t fucking know, you tell me, asshole. “Everybody SCREAM!” I’m busy trying to figure out why there’s a lemon in my long island iced tea, and you want me to scream? Fuck all that buddy, you scream.

How do they do that anyway? Not the screaming, the long islands. I’ve seen them make the motherfuckers, and it’s nothing but booze. That’s how you know you’re getting a decent drink: when the bartender has to grab bottles two at a time. I’ll never understand it, but nonetheless, my hat is off.

Now as I said, I do enjoy some hip hop, but one thing I cannot abide is hip hop lacking witty lyrics. People tell me it’s all about the beat, but I digress. What have you got without lyrical intensity in a hip hop song? A 4 and a half minute drum machine solo. That’s what you’ve got, and that, just will not cut it.

50 cent? I hate fifty cent. That’s right, fifty, though even Sharon Osborne, that status seeking trollup, feels obligated to call him ‘fity.’ I’m getting sidetracked, but what the fuck? How did she get her own show? She has a small dog and is married to a rock star. This is now the requirement for being a television personality? What about attractiveness and the ability to articulate simple concepts? Maybe I’m just mad because I don’t have a dog.

Anyway, about fifty. I love it when I articulate my severe distaste towards the man and his music, and white people say this: Well, he can flow. Shut up. The only flow that white people should be talking about is the monthly kind that has baby makings in it. Flow? Do you even know what that means? NO! You don’t! “Well, he got shot in the face, so he’s a bit more credible than Jah-Rule.” I can’t even comprehend what it would take to be less credible than Jah-Rule, so fuck that. Besides, I don’t think taking a bite from a lead salad necessarily constitutes rap competence. I mean, so fifty shorted some crackhead in Queens on an 8 ball, and the guy shot him. This kind of thing happens all the time, and really shouldn’t lend to credibility. Then again, the guy does have one of the best selling records of all time. BUT! When you consider other popular things, from Olympic figure skating, the world’s strongest man competition, Jim Jones, Hitler, and the Bible, just because something is widely received doesn’t mean it’s good.

Oct 8, 2003

There. An update for anyone that reads this. It's a piece I did for a non-fiction writing class I'm in. Now, after all that work. I need a fucking nap.
When I think of progress. What do I think? I don’t think about boxes that use radiation to superheat my food in mere minutes. I don’t think of electricity, A.I.D.S. Research, or any sprawling metropolis. I don’t think of the endangered flora and fauna that are unfortunate enough to share our biosphere, internal combustion, or the limitless potential of nuclear power. I don’t. I don’t think about these things. When I think of progress, I think about a number. That number is six billion.

Six billion fucking people. Descended from apes and hating every minute of it. Six billion people toiling and troubling: From Chinese peasants harvesting grain, a woman who works the late-night drive-thru at Wendy’s 7 days a week, to sherpas, who’s only purpose has been transformed into helping rich white men climb Everest. Right on down to the rich white men themselves, sipping cognac from leather chairs seated on the veranda that overlooks a tired bayou. Six billion is a number I don’t even understand, being only one serving of it.

But when I look at people, in cars and buses, on bikes and skates, I think of progress. I think of time, and the number. I see the fleshy white girl wearing a trendy shirt 2 sizes too small, where her stomach spills out and competes with her belt for viewing space. I see her, and I wonder about time.

I think about the time these six billion apish organisms have. Not collectively, of course, but each and every one of them. That’s what it all boils down to, though. Time. And how much of it.

How much time we have to do what we want. I wonder if the people who in their younger years, work to consume what the box in the middle of their dwelling tells them is important, ever realize that the box is wrong? Do they ever figure out what is important? Or do they, like this chubby female that’s almost out of sight, with her accessories and makeup, continue their charted course until they expire? And then, their rotund younglings will perhaps continue to propagate the acidic dogma they were weaned on.

I see people, and I think: Six billion. I see a person, and I think: Time.

If one of the people that I see works 8 hours each day in a 5 day working week for a year, this person will have worked for 2,240 hours. If this person sleeps, and as I understand biology, everyone must, another 2,920 are nullified. This person, with the dreadlocks and Phish shirt, regardless of the counterculture he subscribes to, will most likely have about 3,600 hours every year to allocate as he sees fit. Holidays were omitted from the total working time, but if one were to factor time spent in the bathroom, the figures would surely cancel each other.

Three thousand six hundred hours a year. Not much. Certainly not enough. Now, if this same person were to live to the ripened age of 72 (the average life expectancy of an American male) and retired at 65, he or she will have 295,320 hours to spend. Ever. This is your life, and it’s ending.