iPod Reflections

I joined the ranks of iPod owners. In a time when I should not be wasting any more money than I already am, I celebrated the fact that I didn't have to replace a pair of expensive sunglasses, by spending that money on a iPod nano. Normally such toys only serve me on those long trans-pac flights and are left in a drawer during the other 49 weeks a year. So at least for now, I sit at my computer with the headphones on and CNN on mute.

Volcano pierce the air, ashes block out the sun

It's amazing how 8 words can immediately take me half way around the world and years through time. Ash crushed cars, muddy gulches at the edge of every street. Places I've known and loved, gone forever.

Down in the lair, well I met her there
With a price for everyone

I know the song was not written about that place I know, but it might have been. Images flashing through my mind of times stretching back to when I was just a boy really. Whoever she was that I met, she became a part of my warm memories.

I paid eighty dollars for this wedding ring
I couldn't take it off if I tried

That's about what I paid for mine and it's in a box along with other mementos from those times I was with that girl who was my one true love. You ever pray to God you wrong about something you were so sure about?

And the cactus sure tastes strangely sweet
As it goes down inside

Yeah, it sure does. Too bad tequila gives me indigestion. I drink it anyway and for once I was ahead of the trend. Now everybody and their brother is drinking expensive cactus juice and going on about blue agave. Bah!

It's the suck-ass rotation on MTV2, it's the Real World all day long just for you

It's the damn show she liked to watch and I loathed every second of it. About as "Real" as the fake tits on the latest female teen pop star the recording industry throws at us. JD Fortune won Rockstar INXS, going against my prediction and preference. Not a total surprise though, after all the guy can sing. First so called reality show I liked. Instead of a bunch of artificially beautiful people, with their big tits and six-pack abbs, a bunch of people who could actually sing and that's what they actually do. A little more real that Miss Suzi Watermelon Tits balancing on a see-saw making hoops for the chance to win cool million bucks.

What the fuck is real about that?

Lastly, today's "That's Fucked Up" Award goes to...

Comcast Cable. That's right folks, the "Comcast Local Edition" that replaces a section of CNN Headline News, usually the 90 second world news section, is just total fucking bullshit. Comcast is delivering 70 plus channels to my TV, most that I never watch, and can't manage to put the interviews of local city council members and other barely relevant shit on it's own channel?

Maybe next time I'll rant and rave about how the American Media lies through it's teeth, reports only what it wants to, and keeps American's ignorant of the world at large. But for now, I'll listen to music with CD quality, delivered from a device so small and cool it would have been mistaken for alien technology 30 years ago.

-Corwin

Corwin vs Volcano (Anybody Seen FEMA?)

After a while it gets demoralizing to live amongst a seemingly never ending flood of people who see the world diametrically opposed to how I see it. I read somewhere that George Bush doesn't care about Blacks in New Orleans. I read somewhere else that FEMA didn't do anything until 3 or 4 days after hurricane Katrina came ashore. Certainly, if you watched CNN, or Fox News, you didn't see much in the way of relief. It's all around me here in California. People at work, at restaurants, in line at the bank, all commenting on how terrible it is that the government didn't care enough to prepare for this big storm.

I wanna slap some people silly

I remember that on the Friday before the storm hit land, my mother was on the phone telling me about how she was back online with FEMA and along with three thousand other big rigs, she was at some airforce base in Northern Louisiana loaded with water/MRES/ice. I remember when the wind died down, they started running supplies into three states worth of disaster. I remember it would be a 36 to 48 hour period of time before I'd get a call from her telling me where she was because there was no cell service where she had been.

I didn't see that on the news. Ever. Mother sent me pictures of the thousands of trucks lined up. She sent pictures of supplies being unloaded where people lived in hastily setup tent farms. I saw nothing of this on the news. On a message board I read and post on, the usual political fights were taking place. I talked about what my mother was doing and what she told me. One guy who seems to hate anything even vaguely related to the so called "Right" basically called me a liar. He had done a web search and found No reference to any large truck convoys working for FEMA" anywhere on the net. He had also heard nothing about this on the news channels.

On another front, I have friends in the military from the days of my career who tell me that the media reports nothing resembling the truth about the war in Iraq. Other than the body count that is. They are real good about reporting the things that Al Jazeera want us to see. Mother told me about a news crew showing up in Mississippi while she was unloading supplies in a ravaged town. She told me about how the media interviewed no one in the convoy, shot no photos of it and filmed only destroyed homes. They then packed up and drove off. All to easy to imagine the same thing happening in Iraq.

But I don't know more than 1 or 2 people out here in Northern California who believes that. I can sense that my views on the subject are listened to (barely) by my associates and dismissed as fast as spit on a hot grill. Dismissed as one of those brainwashed guys from the military. Dismissed by some jackass who has never left the state 'cept for skiing trips at Lake Tahoe, let alone the country. I'm not totally alone up here in the Bay Area, but others who see what's going on seem to have stopped caring. After all, what's the point? People are going to believe what they see on TV regardless of the truth. Why get all worked up about it?

Maybe that's the point. Those of us who are not blind to the facts, are so outnumbered there is no point in bothering to tell what we know. Nobody believes it. My mother who was THERE, has had it explained to her by people who saw it on the news that she does not know what she is talking about - Nobody helped those poor people. Isn't that rich?

Now before you label me as a right wing nut, understand that I know the war in Iraq ain't perfect and wasn't the best course our country has ever embarked on. I would not have invaded had I been in charge. The response to hurricane Katrina was flawed on several levels. But I'm reminded that it's huge. I know something about logistics and how hard it is to truck things into places under the best of circumstances. Let alone this one. My mother's rig has hundreds, more likely thousands of dollars of damage because it was driven into places that were wrecked; Roads included.

The final insult comes from a bored late night surf of Craig's List. The personals aren't terribly useful but they are entertaining in a morbid sort of way. I've yet to read a "Woman seeking Man" post that any guy I know measures up to, but that's a whole other topic. No, the final insult was that there was one tonight, that a guy could almost manage to fit, but near the end, it said that if you had a military background, voted for Bush, or Arnold, and had any Right Wing leaning, gun owning tendencies, do not reply. Only men who meet the above criteria (tall, great hair, hot, great body, generous meaning willing to buy her things) AND voted for John Kerry should respond.

Romance based on political viewpoint. Like I said - Demoralizing. Seems like everybody's mind is made up. If you don't have the same opinion as I do, piss off. We're not gonna be friends, or anything else. I pray (while I still have the right) that this is not America as a whole, or America of the future.

-Corwin

Magazine Trolls

I'm always blown away by seemingly smart people who write for magazines and newspapers. I picked up a free paper at a taco joint today at lunch; The SN&R also known as the Sacramento News & Review. So there I am, sitting in my truck during a class lunch break. I've got a couple of shrimp tacos and a large soda. I've got a pillow in the back seat cause I'm gonna take a nooner after I eat. This getting up 2 hours earlier to drive to SAC is messing up my sleep patterns. Add to that, I got wrapped around the axle as I lay in my bed about my relations with my dad and his side of the family. It robbed me of sleep for a couple of hours. Nap in the backseat is a good idea.

So I flip through the pages and stop at an article entitled "Muggles unite!" There's a picture the newest Harry Potter book. Now personally, I've never read any of those books but I have seen the movies. They're ok. The main reason I went to see them is the fact that I like Alan Rickman, and Richard Harris. That's my total involvment with the books and movies.

Peter Byrne, the author of the article in question, tells us that reading Hary Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is better if you read it in conjunction with Being and Nothingness. Well so much for my pretending to be smart. I've never heard of the book. Turns out, it's no problem though. Mr. Byrne makes his point. "The Potter tales," he says, "are explicated by Being and Nothingness." Wait a minute. Is this like synchronizing The Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd's - The Wall? Will no sane person see what you mean? Does this require me to drop acid to appreciate the parallels? Hmmmm.

"A Hobbesian landscape in which magical technique has failed to triumph over poverty, illness or capitalism..."

Christ. I'm trying to figure out how this guy has managed to link poverty, illness and capitalism. Ok, I'm a Cold Warrior. I have great memories of the Soviet Union and it's riches. I've actually visited provinces of the FSU. Believe me, there was poverty and illness aplenty. Something hadn't been there in decades. Capitalism. Now, I'm not a man who is overly educated, but it seems like capitalism attracts money, prosperity, and comfortable lifestyles. Those countries I visited are growing stronger every day they are not ruled by Communism. You're thinking of China now. An interesting mix of so called communist rule and capitalist business. Doesn't count.

Then I consider the fact that I'm reading an article written by a man who is likely younger than me, college educated, and knows everything. It always seems to be the way of things in articles. Like so much of the media, they are divorced from the real world on most everything. Let me explain...

In the perfect world inhabited by intellectuals and many people who seem to exist in academia, there are no possessions. No greed, no hunger, yada yada yada. Thanks John. It sounds great and everybody shares. There's plenty for everyone right? All we have to do is share and share alike.

Crap. In such a world there is no reason for anyone to make the goods that offer us the good life. I mean, what is the incentive for making iPods by the millions if you just have to give them away? But wait! Take a step back. Are there six point something BILLION iPods so that everyone can have one? Are there enough resources on planet Earth to make six billion iPods? Yes? How about cars? How about houses? How about every other item of the good life?

Well I've got a newsflash for those guys. There are not enough resources currently available on this planet to allow every single person living on it to have everything we have that is considered "The Good Life". So in order for everyone to have an equal share of what's left of the good life, we all have to accept a lot less than we have now. Never mind the rest of the story. There is greed and there always will be. There's a lot of other human factors that mean there will always be poverty. Illness is something we as a race try to fix, but there's always sickness in new forms. So once again ideals fall short in the less the perfect real world.

You'd think that would be enough lala land for Peter Byrne, but it's not. He goes on to explain that the bad guy is the one who is free and choosing the right path et cetera et cetera. Poor Harry is enslaved by the ideals of the school he attends and the only way he can triumph (over Voldemort) is to break those chains and follow Voldemorts example. Believe me, Mr. Byrne spends considerably more print explaining this point. He invokes Freud, Oedipus complexes, Bad Faith, true Negation, and becoming a free Being. He tells us that Harry must reject magical explainations. Mr. Byrne manages to expect us to believe that if Harry Potter can reject magic, hokum, and stop lying to himself about the world he lives in, that world will be better for everyone. If Harry can make that leap of imagination, maybe we can too. Harry can go join forces with Voldemort also known as the Dark One and then they (and we) will see that in that perfect world of sharing and no possessions et cetera, there are also no heros and no villians right?

Peter? It's a damn adventure story you moron!!! How enjoyable is a book or movie when there is no conflict? Man vs Man. Man vs Beast. Man vs Environment and so forth. Imagine these books if there was nothing in which the protagonists must strive against. Where would the story be? I mean you can only have so many stories about a person struggling with his primative human nature while in a perfect workers paradise.

Charlie wants another piece of pie, but the only way to get it is steal it from anther person. The Pie Baking Battalion couldn't get enough ingrediants to make THIRTEEN BILLION pieces of pie. There were only sixish billion so there's not a second piece for Charlie. In his desire for another piece he has tasted the sour flavor of greed and he weeps at his own inner weakness blah blah blah.

Quite a movie. Maybe we can get John Williams to do the soundtrack, but no, we'd be just as good with me writing the songs because all things are equal in this paradise right? Will everyone look the same too? Nobdy lusting over the neighbor's great looking wife? No, stop now. King David is a whole other story.

So, as I kicked back for my nap, I realized that these articles must be written by what we call...

A Troll

Boy do I feel like a reeled in fish. I'm amazed that magazines hire and pay trolls a salary. But I guess I'll have to believe they do because the alternative is very frightening.

-Corwin

Coming Late

I'm coming late the the blogsphere. By now it's no big thing to anyone. Good. I wouldn't want too many people reading my crazy rants. To those of you who do; Welcome. You will read things here you are unlikely to see anywhere else. I'm a different kinda guy.

I have lots of opinions to share. I have plenty of things I want to get off my chest about the world and it's never ending supply of stupidity, injustice, and bullshit. This will be fun.

Let the ride begin...