Morally Bankrupt?

Upon leaving work today I was walking through Secaucus and every girl dresed for halloween over the age of 10 was dressed as a street walker, and every guy was dressed as a thug. What does that say about what kids idolize these days? Why is it cool to dress as a skank when you're 11? I just don't get it.

Oh well, at least Jeff Buckley is still sweet. "Everybody Here Wants You" off of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk is a great song with so many different flavors. It seems to change moods three times before it's over. Incredible.

Hmmmm...

When a candle burns slowly, you always know that no matter how many times you blow it out, it'll always be there when you need it. When a candle burns too quickly, you bask in the flame it creates and then it burns itSELF out.

It's a shame on the one hand, and a comforting thought on the other.

Goodnight folks.

Modern American Union

The modern american love, I believe, is to be able fight like honest people, and in the end know that you love the person no matter what. It is not only important to be able to love and care for, through sickness and in health, it is also important to be able to argue in the face of fear, with a deep faith and trust, and knowledge, of the love that creates the foundation. If you can't hate the person at some point, you can't truly love them.

This of course comes WAY after the initial swooning, crooning, and adorational love. It's the litmus test. After the burst of enthusiasm comes the occasional frown, and then, in a beautiful way, the smile that always chases the frown away. We all know that smile. It's more forgiving and satisfying than any bucket of ice cream.

Smile all yee lovers. Smile BIGGER all yee fighters for love.

Long live Jon Bon.

Getting back to this Fame idea...

On my long walk home today I started pondering this whole notion of fame once again and why fame/celebrity status tends to manipulate people, turn them shallow and self-absorbed, and quite often, become terrible people in general.

Of course it's ego driven. You could say it's that simple. Yes, you're probably saying 'Duh Holden, this is obvious.' But what about fame though, drives the ego to become that much more swollen? More than from, say, just plain old payoff from hard work? I think our brain (as well as our basic human nature) expects life to be hard, trying, and all around requiring a lot of work. When something comes from nothing, our ego goes "huh?" But, as with anything else, once we get exposed to it enough (see our names up in lights, so to speak), after a while we also start to see this as not only normal, but also deserved. Then the ego accepts and embraces. Then we believe all the BS about ourselves.

So, in conclusion, the only real people who deserve to become famous are people like Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, etc, because they were already assholes to begin with. There's a lot of celebrities in hollywood who I am sure could be capable of some pretty unpseakable atrocities too if they weren't already so distracted and sedated by their luxurious lifestyle. Who knows...

I Wish I Had Something Fascinating to Say

But, being that it's 8:15 and I've been awake since my usual 6:15, I must say I have nothing but brain fuzz going on. I did, however, see a program the other night about Pol Pot, the notorious Communist Ideologue/dictator from Cambodia. Man, I do love a program that teaches me something about a facet of the world I did not know about. And this was definitely a whole dose of new information for me. I really had no idea about the man or the depth of all that was involved with the Khmer Rouge. But dear sweet lord, do not mistake my enthusiasm for learning with praise for Pol Pot. A monster and megalomaniac this man was. So absorbed in his own rhetoric that he actually convinced himself that what the Khmer Rouge was doing was in some way acceptable AND not lacking in humanity. People like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein (and I'm sure many others we don't know as well, due to as yet unprofessed fame) are of a caliber of human that can only be categorized as terrifying. The ego, the ideology, and the faith in themselves as somehow righteous makes these individuals achieve terrifying results as well.

People often make the comparison of our species to a virus in that we take over, plague and infect everything until we lay waste to what we claim. But within our species, there are individuals who are just as virologic in nature. Scary stuff.

My Wise Friend Jordie

"Rules for owners of Western-themed restaurants:

1. Don't serve portobello anything. Let the Italian restaurant across the street do that.

2. Crab does not belong anywhere near a quesadilla. I don't know why you even thought it would. And this is me letting you slide on the "tomato and spinach" quesadilla.

3. Catfish is SOUTHERN. Southern is NOT Western. The surest way to loose "Western" credibility is not being able to tell the difference, which most New Yorkers can't. The only time crab and catfish is okay is if you are running a restaurant that is "Every-part-of-the-country-except-New York" theme, then the crab would fit in with your New England/Chesapeake areas and the catfish would cover the South.

Rules of etiquette for dining in Western-themed restaurants (based on actual observations):

1. Never order a Martini. Yes, I know they're good. So go to the Jazz club down the street and get one. Here you're drinking Bud or Corona with lime.

2. Never order wine with your enchiladas. If you want wine, again, have it with the portobello mushrooms across the street at the Italian place. You know, it's really the restaurant's fault for making wine and martinis available for you to make poor choices.

3. If you are a dude, you do not order just a salad for dinner. Be a man and eat some meat. If you're a vegetarian, that's fine. You order the cheese enchiladas or quesadillas. If you're a vegan, you stay the heck at home (or order a pitcher of beer for yourself, in which case you become the life of the party and distract everyone from noticing that you are a dude who is not eating meat)."

Friday Night Right

Met up with some good friends on Friday, several degress of them actually. First was Mr.Yo Clembo, Jay, Mr. Bradley Timmers and his wife who I will proudly call new friends, and some folks I have met many times from Medidata where the C and J both work(ed). Next, I ran into a different crowd of people I recently met at the last location where my job was placed. Good crew also, not quite sure they understand my eccentricities just yet. Oh well.
After that I ran into this homeless guy on 6th street and ave B. whom I have actually seen several times before. We had an hour long conversation that was mostly lucid on his part but he did have some really interesting things to say. Whether he was always in his right mind per se, well that leaves some doubt, but nice to talk to anyway. And he didn't beg, so I gave him some money and headed on my merry way to Port authority to sit on the floor for an hour. Ah Port Authority at that hour, so freakin gross and unpleasant.

Hmm, I'm not a very good poster today as I don't seem to have much to say. If I have to be a poster, I'd prefer to be one more like this:

Spammed or Not

Last week, friday to be exact, I was at work finishing up a long busy day (most of my days are like this now which is odd because last year I could actually feel my cells dying and being born I was so bored), and lo and behold I get one of the many spam emails that periodically show up at my work address. Normally they come right into the spam filter and get stuffed in a folder. This nice little folder is like a frog eating flies on a lily pad: it snatches up spam before I even know it's there. But sure enough sometimes those adds for VnAGra pop right through anyway. (now that I see it written that way I feel subconsciously drawn to go get some Viagra, hmmm, it must be working)

But this one was sort of odd. the typing was all intermittent and it was asking me for help, saying it "had no voice box and could not speak, but no trach tube. Can you help?" I forwarded it along to my good friend Clembie who at first said the woman had ALS (lou Gehrig's disease) but that it was probably some sort of spam. So I played around and kept asking the spam program questions. It usually gave the exact same broken english response, and didn't answer my questions. So finally I just asked it where it got my email address...and suddenly it broke pattern and said "from the BCEI.org Genentech website"

I sat there spell bound and sorta creeped out as I realized this really was a person and the poor woman was reaching out for help. Here I was messing around convinced it couldn't be real. So why is the website suddenly such a key? Because I'm the webmaster for that site, have an email address that is linked to a mailbox that isn't my normal one but still check, and most importantly, that that thing NEVER misses spam. So this is definitely a real person and she's definitely asking for help. I then told her I am just a drone and not a real doctor. She thanked me and that was that.

Crazy, the internet makes us such skeptics, and for good reason what with all the scams and viruses and identity theft. But very sad nonetheless that our humanity gets so wapred that a person can't really ask for help using pretty much the only means available to her.

Make no mistake, there is still a part of me that thinks it's all just someone messing around. And so the circle of second guessing goes on and on and on. Oh well.

Up and Yuppie

My roommate and I decided to rent a new place out in the ol' Ruthie once more, and we decided we'd do it right this time. New building, new rent, new everything really. I'm pretty damn psyched about it. Change can be scary, but when it's your decision it feels so much better. I never really thought I'd find myself in a building like this because it's in many ways not like my personality at all. BUT, the place is right by the commuter train lines, has a gym, I get my own bathroom with a tub that will stay immaculately clean because of me, and finally, direct sunlight. Plus this place allows pets, so the good Dr. Holdo Boldo will soon be a dog owner. I had some serious reservations at first because I have for a really long time wanted to see what living in the city itself would offer to me. But, upon thinking a bit more, I decided that I really want to give this area one last chance. I've had enough drastic changes take place in the last two years to last me a good while. I wanted to make a change that was easier but still definitive. And so, by January 1 we'll see a new chapter. And if in a year's time I decide it's just not all that peachy, into the city, or another city, I go!

I saw Tool on friday night and it was the best damn thing I have done in so long. Holy lord almighty, I love that band and no one can top them live. Quite possibly one of the best shows I have ever seen.

This is my fellow co-president from high school and this is his adorable daughter. I randomly bumped into him in Madison Wisconsin last week on a business trip. The chances of that happening were extremely slim and yet, sure enough, there it was. I had no idea he was living there. Thinking about just how unlikely that was is sort of mindblowing. Life is pretty strange sometimes.

"Just Testing My Shoes"

Supposedly, a blog is a place you can post all kinds of anonymous types of stuff and share some of the truest thoughts and experiences you've had. Then again, sometimes it's best not to share all the details on the internet. So for that very reason I leave out any major specifics about my trip to San Fran except these few here: I did a thing I've always wondered about; I helped a random man change a tire on a busy city street; I met up with some family; and I met an amazing girl.

That being said I'll go into my diatribe about changing mindsets. In the last year or so, lots of major changes have happened in my life and I'll be the first to admit that I don't always handle them well. This last year has been especially tough most of all and I think I managed to experience a lapse in judgment in a general sense. I think I struggled with overdramatizing things a bit, but I also have a tendency to be too hard on myself and I genuinely was going through a lot of really, really tough stuff. So, I won't blame myself completely. But one of the amazing things about our brains is that we have to accept that evolution has dealt us a funny card. Unlike most species, we have an enormous capacity for mental growth. This capacity, though, also tends to cause a funny kind of imbalance sometimes. In those Sometimes we get overstimulated, we simply cook inside our own skulls. And that's not just people who are too complicated, everybody goes through it once in a while. Brain chemistry is a funny thing. Hopefully, and eventually, we then get perspective again. I think I've learned a good deal in the last two years and I'm happy to say I have a lot more to learn. And for the first time in a long while I'm really open to the idea of experiencing everything. And recently, I have taken this new attitude out for a test drive and, surprise surprise, it's quite sporty and fun, like a BMW 500 series. Not outlandish, but certainly pricey in the realm of the fear factor.

Life really is just way too short to allow yourself to become a zombie. Stare like a zombie, into the tv, stare like a junkie. no no no, ya gotta keep livin. Oh and I'll be seeing Tool this friday thanks to my dear sweet friend Mira. The seats are unbelievable.
margie took this last night. Apparently this is a "Pete" face