and so it is… [another place to catch my word drippings]

and what a lovely idea. i cannot think of anything i love more than writing to complete strangers. if you do happen to know me in real life that’s ok too, i am willing to pretend if you are. i need this place to muse and vent and maybe figure a few things out. if you aren’t interested i understand, if you are, keep reading.

The Kentucky Derby is STILL Decadent and Depraved!

I will provide specific examples of various social and political commentaries from Hunter Thompson’s article “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” I will examine Thompson’s place and importance within the culture he was critiquing as well as within the realm of journalism itself. Although he was most often under the influence of one or a variety of substances his words and insight have influenced many who knew or read him. He dedicated himself, compulsions and all, to the craft of journalism. He has personally been one of my favorite writers since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas several summers ago. What drew me to Thompson was his ability to make the ordinary remarkable. I feel his style is reflective of the subjectivity that has seeped into our culture, beginning with the rise of New Journalism, a style that had many similarities to Gonzo Journalism.

Thompson’s article is immersive due to its exploration of the surroundings and the writer’s obsessive practice of the continual, unquestioned traditions and indulgences in question. Steadman calls this going “native,” which they do, becoming the “real beasts” they have come to see perform. Many of Thompson’s generation sought to expand their minds, they often achieved this by pushing their bodies to extremes while the upright citizens of the day deplored their degrading behaviors. Thompson was perhaps speaking out in opposition to some acts of depravity but lived his life according to his own moral code. I identify with his tactics and works because I too notice a trend of alienation, of increasing anti-social tendencies and isolation. Thompson spoke for his generation because while he felt his views were important he felt equally responsible to point out any biases he had as a journalist. Thompson achieved this with his over-the-top style.

Thompson’s judgments are meant to be humorous at first glance however; they contain relevant cultural critiques and provide readers insight of the times and of the widely different levels of experience that were available within a famous southern tradition. One of the most intriguing aspects of the article was the attempt of the journalist and illustrator to find a proper caricature, a representative face of the entire culture: “He had done a few good sketches, but so far we hadn’t seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for a lead drawing. It was a face I’d seen a thousand times at every Derby I’d ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of whiskey gentry–a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture” (Thompson 5). Thompson and Steadman were seeking more than just an illustration for the piece; Thompson wanted a symbol “of the whole doomed atavistic culture that makes the Kentucky Derby what it is” (Thompson 5). In the end, journalist and illustrator hit the bottom of the barrel but somehow make it out alive. Thompson wakes after consuming mass amounts of alcohol, admirable by even Derby standards and doesn’t even recognize himself in the mirror at first, he has transformed into the caricature he was seeking.

nightmare stairs

Feet pound erratically on uneven stairs that I take at top speed, flashing a jagged key, twisting an oval knob, heart racing past a pile of summer shoes. I bolt the door behind me. This reminds me of a recurring dream I had when my window overlooked Broadway and the train tracks. The creature was snarling with black matted fur and cold eyes. I pushed my brother inside and saw it going for my mother. Her foot caught on a stair and she fell forward. Someone inside slammed and locked the door. I stared through glass and screen. I saw my mother’s eye disappear down the dog’s throat. I tried to scream and move. I tried to shake the bed. I saw the ceiling and heard a familiar voice.

a house i don’t really remember… [work in progress]

The wooden floor is hard against my head. Colored lights
crawl across the wall warping in the cob-webbed corners.
In the next room ending credits play. The babysitter opens
the screen door. I hear my mother’s voice but not
what she says. I’m pretending to be asleep.

In Response to an Avid Reader: All Your Ed Are Belong to Us

This is a comment I received on a message I sent the University of Northern Iowa where I am currently a student and employee. My original message was about the declining quality of the education at UNI and my personal dissatisfaction with a proposed $100 surcharge for the spring semester (after financial aid has been established potentially causing the extra fee to come out of student’s living, food or transportation budgets with only a few months warning). Feel free to react to anything, I do not discourage people who disagree with me as long as they bring up valid points. I have considered the following and don’t really see eye to eye with the author.

Keeping that in mind, I invite you to read my response to this gentleman named Mark: Our student tuition is still lower than all the other regent universities in Iowa. UNI has an excellent educational program for the amount we are lucky to pay. $100 surcharge is quite small and I was actually shocked to hear they weren’t going to increase tuition by $500 or even $1000. UNI receives less private and federal money than the other two regent universities, and so cuts like these place an added burden on our institution.

A Message I Sent to the Univeristy of Northern Iowa

I am disappointed in my school and their decision to charge students a $100 surcharge when the nearest community college has found a way around a similar fee at their institution. This surcharge comes with additional increases in fees and tuition totaling over 6% for 2010-11!

“As a senior and a student employee (for most of my time at school) I have to ask you to not make us pay a surcharge. I read in the paper today that HCC students wouldn’t be charged a fee for their spring semester and they are suffering with the same cuts that we are. I have been following our school in the paper and am ashamed that students with sports scholarships are protected with a 2 million dollar donation to “preserve” only certain non-academic activities on a university campus when whole programs could get the axe. Shame on you for going ahead with all (even unnecessary) planned building projects plus the demolition of Baker hall (coincidentally the building my department is in.) I am under the burden of classes (which could be two weeks sorter with longer meeting times next semester) that are going to cost me more even when my bills are skyrocketing, the student loan companies are breathing down my neck and as a valued university employee I didn’t get my promised raise. I make a whopping 7.45 an hour, thirty cents less than I was making in food service. I understand that everyone is having difficulties but my point is that UNI should be a place for education, an environment where students can learn and work and not have to worry about footing the bill when departments and individuals insist on using more than their fair share. I just ask that my school do the right thing, before I am forced to leave it. I can not afford and REFUSE to pay for an education that has for the most part NOT BEEN WORTH THE MONEY OR EFFORT!”

the 23 is taken already [new list blog]

http://the23istakenalready.wordpress.com/

go there for sexy, intolerable, nonsensical and random lists with 23 itmes.

i finally saw jack white

the dead weather show was amazing! better than i could have imagined! we were so close to the stage and it was a small-ish venue. the colorado trip was really fun (a bit stressful) and even though i didn’t see woody creek (or write in my freshly purchased journals) i have some great stories and memories and PICTURES! i will be sure to post them here and detail my trip once i get a chance to update from home. i feel this post is growing dull, why ever would anyone ever come here just to read what i’ve done… as if i live an interesting life… well at least for the moment i have some of you  fooled

we did come home to our house trashed by two irresponcible teenagers (who are in the process of moving out of our house) but let’s not gratify them otherwise than to say that i may have been wrong for my too-quickly offered apology as neither of them seem worth their weight in beans at the moment…)

and we’re not talking magic beans! all in all i dyed my hair, we made tye dye t-shirts, we saw the dead weather, we went to casa bonita, we camped in between two beautiful mountains and for all the worry and wear are soon to be rid of a few pests living in our attic… other than that it has been a crazy summer what with all the storms and stuff… teachers used to forbid us to end a sentance with “stuff” but here… in the real world (or at least a crappy little blog that no one cares about stuff is perfectly understandable and it means a lot)

 

btw in case you were wondering… yes jack white was amazing and i can die happy now… sort of…

color-in-dreams

pomegranate thoughts drip from

my mouth to the ears of a provolone-ly

moon-faced man with gaping

wisdom-tooth-sized-cavities

(with roots deep in impracticalities)

like the inevitable nature of  sleep,

and dreams. my pillow sours, a flushed

cheek turns cool wondering at the thing

(the monster lurking near the drinking

glass) a tinge of a dream that singed a lash

as it fluttered fully open…

the mystery of the missing brian hall

i slid in the mud–voices on t.v. floated out the window, my owww

an unnoticed howel to the hungry hangnail-moon.

AIM yrs l8ter: OMG WTF EVER HAPPENED 2 BRIAN HALL?

but that night broken glass was embedded in my foot. a long deep cut,

bloody foot gushing on wet blades of grass…he chased me

around the house in circles, we rode out bikes with0ut touching handlebars.

we picked up broken window-shield glass, pretending the shards were priceless diamonds.

we pulled hairs from giant green men, single strands at a time or in chunks connected to roots

and dirt. once i broke a branch off a tiny tree his dad had just planted, i grabbed it

and put my full 60lbs into a swing, landing hand in hand with wrinkled leaf and bending limb.

The White Stripes – Apple Blossom Time (Live)

there is no one sexier than jack white. i just thought i would share this and give you an idea why the white stripes have been my favorite band since i was like 15 years old and i saw the dead leaves video on late night mtv and watched the stripes on conan when he was still ON late night. growing up is hard to do but at least i’ve had idols like jack, kurt and hunter. i am in good literary hands for all three of these men are literary geniuses and we all know how i feel about the way jack and kurt can play a guitar. each of them represent the most important things in my life so far: honesty, beauty, and poetry. i want to share my favorite moments from my heroes and idols so that the world will not overlook or forget them and their contributions to me and generations of dreamers and artists and writers and ever silent observers. i hope everyone enjoys the new blog i will be tackling (a list-blog but one that will be full of the most interesting things i can think to write about, i hope you will join me there, oh my brothers) your humble narrator will make it all better and show you what real music can do to the gulliver once left to sodding warp in the like sticky mess of mind-goo. go forth and prosper and perspire oh my little sissies and brothers because tomorrow we might be knocking down the door and busting out of these chests, shit we might be buried up to our necks or worse. we might not get a chance to say goodbye, god knows it’s happened before, so let’s pretend for now that goodbye is now so we won’t miss the chance later after life has handed us its last tart lemon…