No need for name calling

So some of you out there might be harboring ill feelings of judgment, thinking maybe I'm a joker, referring to myself as a Hipster. One might argue that one doesn't need to label himself, that he is who he is. One might argue that a King knows he's a King, but doesn't go around calling himself King. An Umpire knows he's an Umpire, but doesn't go around calling himself an Umpire. A Satirist knows he's a Satirist but doesn't go around calling himself a Satirist.... oh wait. Yes he DOES. I'm just beating you all to the punch. I'm using the irony of the entire situation to drive this, the very ridiculing only shows how deeply passionate and intense I am. It's all something I read years ago in a book you've never even heard of because you've been too busy reading the Twilight series or some old childhood favorite sci-fi novel like Ender's Game, which is totally overrated and not nearly as good as half the underground sci-fi there is if you just have the open mind to look for it. English lesson for the day: Satirist; from French, or from Latin satira, later form of satura 'poetic medley'. One who uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity and vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. The fact that so many out there exist who try and become this undefinable "Hipster" is the catalyst behind my endeavors. And while many young, punk kids out there allow fashion (i.e. avoidance of fashion) and mainstream media (i.e. avoidance of mainstream media) to tax their brains with what and what not to do, I, on the other hand, am as real as the air we breath, and as in touch with what's truly existing as mother earth herself. Besides, I'm not a Hipster. F**k you.


Now that that is said and done, I'd like to move on to a current thought of mine: Chatting. Not what goes on in the dark corners of late-night pubs and cafes (that I'm sure most of you are dying to find out what it's like. [BTW not that great]). No, I'm talking about the bullshit way of our generation's form of communicating. And as much as I'd love to get into it all (maybe I'll save that for another vent), I'd like to hone my skills of ill-humor and wit on one specific event which frequents the realm of cyber communication: the forced farewell. It's inescapable. It's inevitable. It's unavoidable. I've witnessed many an inexperienced, uncultured git succumb to it. You know the story: you open up your gmail, Facebook, or other "friend site" that instigates digital discussing, and notice some of your compadres are on. Obligation kicks in, or maybe you actually feel like talking - scratch that - chatting. But after two or three shallow sentences and hollow quirks you say you gotta go. Not off the site. Just chatting with that person. So you X that little chat window out, and try and move on with your life, possibly chatting with other friends, the whole time finding your eye wondering over and seeing that that friend you said goodbye to is still there. Perhaps you even find yourself starting to feel like you need to sign out completely, or go invisible. It's the equivalent of walking out of a theatre with a friend, saying goodbye to each other, and then continuing to walk the next five minutes in the same direction.


Why do people do this to themselves? Because as complicated and awkward as conversing with another human being can be, it quadruples when both are doing so through a computer screen. Suddenly you're coming up with an excuse to leave. "My boss has a project for me to do now", "Oh, my friend's calling me", "Well, I think I'm gonna go to bed now". You're not going to bed! No one's calling you! It's just that now thanks to these wonderful chat sites, lying has become limitless! Hell, you can say whatever you prefer! "Soup just spilled all over my floor", "Some guy just came in my room and he's asking who's gonna pay for the pizza", "I just sat on an Exacto knife". Go ahead, be creative. Because they'll never know. And why does it happen? Why do we find ourselves tickets out of chatting instead of saying, "I'm done talking with you"? Well, because we're human, and lying is easier. There is, of course, the other alternative, where you just turn your computer off and tell your friend at some future date that your internet went down. And none of us enjoy leaving things hanging. We chat with others, and the whole time that hanging last sentence still lingers on the screen with sexydoll69@hotmail.com: "Yeah, that's so cool", submitted at 3:46 pm. It sits there, and we keep looking at it. Do we really just close the window? Do we type a quick "yeah" or "for sure!" to keep the dead conversation going? We wait longer, and their little icon showing they're available turns to an icon showing they're idle. Finally, one gives in, and types "Okay, well, I gotta get going." And if one or the other doesn't leave that site immediately, then both have to deal with the inevitable discomfort. But at times the chatters don't leave. Obviously, one didn't really have to go. They just didn't want to talk anymore. Some can stomach the awkward vibe. But most others, grieved with guilt or discomfort, find themselves logging off and pursuing other equally shallow activities, like picking up their cellular devices and texting anyone they might feel could be entertaining at the moment. But the fact remains the same. We all do it. You chat, later you find yourself bored of it, and in order to dodge the hand of awkward goodbyes, you make something up. But you better make it a good one, or you could find yourself in just as unpleasant a circumstance when you are noticed for not living up to your word. You said you had to do laundry, so why is it showing you're not off? Doing your laundry?


And let us hope this little blessing never falls upon your hip, euro-emo mullet-like hair-styled head (this can be interchanged with 50's-esque flapper girl straight bangs with plastic barrette you use to wear when you were eight hair-styled head). True story, I was talking to this girl for like five minutes but she lost my sense of care when she started talking about Modest Mouse and The Flaming Lips! What, are you from year 2000? Everybody knows those bands sold out eons ago. So I told her I had to go to this art gallery I was volunteering at. But then Porter got on and I started chatting with him (I went invisible). After about fifteen minutes, when even he started boring me about all the Rockstars he had drunk over the last 12 hours, he suddenly shoots out "Hey, talking with Sasha. I just told her I'm chatting with you, but she says you are at an art gallery. Aren't you gonna be late?" Well shit. She knew I was lying.Needless to say, we don't chat anymore. Not that I care. She thought Wes Anderson was Indie. Indie! Anyway, I gotta go. I have like this poetry reading I have to help host.

Olympics are so corporate

Turns out the Olympics will be hosted in Beijing, China. Typical. After having them in Salt Lake, now we've got to re-emphasize how prosperous and intricately marketed our nation is by comparing it to a mud-watered, left-in-the-attic city that can't even take care of its own monuments. They say countries bid on where the Olympics will be held. So did Beijing offer all their factories that produce little doll hats, plastic dog squeaky toys and nail clippers or something? No, it's an international financial scam is what it is. And while it might boost China's economy with multitudes of tourists flocking to the stands selling silk shirts screaming "Welcome for Coming!" it sure doesn't help ME out. I just got a text from my bud Porter who's actually going to this stunt. And now I'M going to have to deal with the upgrade in caliber of his wardrobe when he gets back. Most definitely he'll be incorporating deck new apparel only found in China that no one else will have, nor even understand the ironic Chinese writings. So I'm currently planning my week-long trip to Denmark using my mom's paycheck in order to counter this dilemma. Danish is so in.

So why are the Olympics still going on anyway? Half the world sitting around the tube watching others physically compete with one another? No thanks. There're too many independent films out there I haven't seen yet. Don't waste my time with guys sweating it out and blindly chanting their appropriate country's anthems. Who cares! I couldn't imagine being as big as them either. It's morbid. No, it's programmed self-sacrifice. If I ever go over my 2% body fat I don't know what I'll do with all these jeans (I nabbed in Vice magazine that American Apparel was having a sale and I bought seven pairs).

We were gonna go for a town bike ride yesterday, but half of us couldn't get our rusted chains on our circa '79 fixed gears to work and no one had cash to buy a pump nor some WD-40, so we went back to Michell's. Some cheese puffs and two six packs of Blue Ribbon later, we're playing Rock Band. I did it for like 3 minutes, but got effing tired of it. Nothing but fan-fare, commercialized rock anyway. So I went to the basement and played the same 3 chords I know on my electric guitar without an amp for the next hour 45 minutes. I'd start a band, but I haven't met anyone with the same vision, and I don't want to get out of my element. When no one came down I decided to go back up. They wanted to watch something, and last week I bought "Wrist Cutters" on Ebay, and even though no one had seen it, they had all heard of it, so I was over it and sold it and bought "Caramel" instead. Sweet-ass Arabic subtitled film about affairs and lost love. No one's even heard of it.

This girl's eyeing me, so I'm probably gonna make out with her. She's got these super, thick-rimmed glasses that are sorta, like, covered by her leveled bangs. I'll probably tell everyone about what we did tomorrow at the show, but I might be too hung over to even remember. Anarchy.

Not really my thing, but whatever.

I was reading through a EuroPop Mag that's soooo underground, and happened to come across this diamond in the rough. I don't agree, technically, with everything Sebastian says, but he's pretty funny. Obviously his humor reeks of popular sarcasm and recycled wit. Probably the kind of guy that ejaculates his ideas through crude, self-restrained drawings. That all aside, it's humorous notwithstanding. I'd even find myself enjoying this guy's company, most likely, if I didn't loathe his brashness so much. Click on it to get the better view to read it.

Blogging isn't deck

My therapist (I don't really need one, I just set appointments with him to let my mind breathe some air) told me that starting a blog could be just as salubrious as our sessions. I don't know if I fully believe it, but I deeply revere the man so I'm going to trust his words. I don't really fancy the idea of blogging. Too many people do it, first off. And I really don't like discussing my life. But maybe this friendly self-banter in reality is what I thrive on. What others might or might not think of me could be the whole reason I am who I am. Anyway, like it really matters…

I don't know if I'm going to stick with my Facebook account. It's becoming so corporate. It's just, so many souls looking for something, keep finding themselves getting lost in it, and it's making me feel like a conformist (and dare I say addict?) to world wide web writing now. I mean, I already have, like, over 400 friends on there, and it's getting to the point where I'm full on ignoring requests. But I don't know. Maybe I'll just delete all my profile information and only leave one photo of me on there, as to keep the spirit of aloofness and detached mystery . Obviously Myspace is out of the question, you know? I mean, come on, it's had its time. Nothing but a whore pit and a slut lounge now. I use to dig up all my music through that. But now when I check up on the artists, I see they have entire throngs listening to them now, so I stopped liking those bands and started surfing on third name record labels. It's just there's sooooo much out there untapped, you know? Once you open your eyes to vinyl, new doors open. Sometimes I'll just sit and vibe out and just…. exist. Nothing sounds as REAL as music cut straight into the heart of a vinyl. And I'm so sick of the indie scene. So many venues now where a minute percentage of people might actually KNOW something about the band. A friend through a friend through a friend, you know? That's fine though, I've got my Zune. I had an iPod, but hell, everyone does. I'm not saying I traded it just because of that. It's just the buttons on a Zune are nicer and it's just seriously better. No joke.

Yesterday I was talking with my friends about bands you probably wouldn't know and we had just got a small bite to eat at Daniel's Organic Bar, and Robyn's going off on current events and shit, when I started thinking about just how much a spiritual journey we're all on. And it's good to have friends though it all, even though we don't ever really HAVE friends, just others we find on the path. And as I walked and thought about just being, I was so euphoric knowing they were thinking the same thing. But then I spilled some of my sprout and tomato sandwich on my shirt, right on the v-neck, and got the necklace I took from my grandpa's World War II military chest stained as well. The shirt was from some thrift store years back, or maybe it was like from my uncle's high school reunion, I don't remember (that's pretty much the history of all my clothes) but I got super pissed. I would've still been pissed, but this one girl I recognized from my friend's Flickr account was walking towards us. In reality, I didn't care to talk to her, cause I'm in a complicated relationship, but then I saw she had a pierced nose and she WAS uber-fashionable, so I nodded to her and she half-smiled. Turns out she wants to be a clothing designer. I've been monitoring her blog since, and she's got some stellar ideas. I have some too, but I'm seriously too busy working on some paintings and a book I plan on writing when I have more money. So little time, right? I'm just glad she came up and talked to me. She even had an iced vanilla chai tea (no worries, it wasn't Starbucks). I was slightly dazed, though, because when I'm with my crew, I worry sometimes. It's not like we're intimidating, but we probably are, a little. I see how some cats try and join our group, but seriously, since when can anyone just JOIN in, am I right? I don't ostracize, but just because I said I liked your head band doesn't mean you can just take a sip out of the Nantucket Nectars Organic Juice in my hand. And I hate it when I hear some say, "I'm with this group." We're not an effing "group".

My friend Dan bought some $100.00 Puma sneaks the other night. I let him know he's becoming a freaking conformist. I have these tennis hops I got off Rusty Zipper.com, man. No one recognizes them. Probably only exist in Sweden. I still only wear them once a week though. It's summer so I try and be barefoot as much as possible. Chelsea told me when I'm barefoot in my skinny jeans I look like Tunde Adebimpe (TVOTR [TV on the Radio] lead singer). I haven't listened to them like in a month because I've been getting new stuff, stuff you wouldn't know, but I enjoyed hearing that. Anyway, I have to part. It's been over a week, and I need to take some new Facebook profile shots, and they've got a new load of records that came in downtown (can't tell you the name of the place) and I need something new for my circa '59 record player I took from my grandmother. Maybe I'll write again, maybe not. I might have too many art projects to work on.