did I hear you on the radio?

why yes you did hear me on the radio! they have been running a Studio 360 show on NPR that says my first and last name too.

wanna hear it? here it goes.

more later...

Austin Wonderland

Tonight I watched the movie Wonderland with Val Kilmer. I must say that it did remind me a lot of Randy. Val wasn’t anywhere as strung out and skittish as he needed to be to pull off that junkie paranoia but he sure was sexy. He was always so clean… drug addicts are not known for their hygiene or attention to grooming. I tried not to make the comparison, but some of the scenes when John is talking to his wife Sharon were too familiar.

It’s frightening how close I came to that kind of ridiculous life they were living in the movie. At least I never married Randy and thank God there were no children. Sometimes I do remember the fun bits of our 3 year whatever that was. Not that it was all fun and games there at the end, but at least I didn’t have to wash blood off of his face. I didn’t get the impression that John was ever violent with Dawn, but I suppose I related more with Sharon. Sharon wanted to cut him off so many times, but he came back and she just kept reluctantly dealing with his crap.

Man, I can relate to that. Sometimes Randy would come knocking on the window, (before he moved in the first time), and I wouldn’t even want to open the door. But then he would rumble something disarming and charming, or desperate and needy, or even anguished and suffering. His constant barrage of emotional grappling hooks eventually wore me down and in he would come. After we screwed and went thru whatever emotional baggage he brought with him that night, I would generally scold him about how late it was or how long he had been away but inevitably I’d start trying to make him comfortable. I was still vegetarian when we first hooked up but I kept frozen meat meals in the freezer just in case he was actually eating that day. I knew I was falling for him when I stood in the freezer section of the grocery store trying to decide if my wayward stripper speed freak quasi-boyfriend would rather eat a turkey dinner or lasagna. I seriously doubt any of his other women worried about his diet.

One day I should sit down and write all of that madness down before I repress it completely. Like the story behind the 18x4 stolen painting that he brought to my house, or the Jet Ski on my apartment porch. That would have been kinda hard to explain to a cop – why a girl with no car had somehow hauled a heavy piece of boating equipment to an apartment 30 miles from any large bodies of water. I did love when he gave me all of his contracting checks and the big cuts from stripping gigs to put in my bank account – Randy was on an allowance! Or how a guy (ol’ Danny Crow) impersonating Randy Bachman from the band Bachman Turner Overdrive was running a nudist flop house with a 17 year old girl in a gatehouse at the lake. All the long weekends we spent at Carlos & Charlie’s spending money like water and enjoying the sun. I kinda do miss Mike and I would love to talk to him again. He was like the one sane person that we could talk to together and he saw right thru our shit. No matter how solid we thought our point was, he could burst that soap bubble and verbally slap you on the ass. I’m sure he got tired of the yelling and the tears, but I think he wanted to fill that Dad role for us. Some of the things he said to me are still as true as they were then…I still won’t learn that last lesson, Mike.

It was hard to separate Val Kilmer from the character he was trying to play. He is so damn sexy. Randy was attractive to me for many of the same reasons, but I don’t know if I’d even fall for him now. God, I hope not. He was born on September 16, 1964 so this year he turns 40. He was 29 when I met him so I suppose it’s fitting that I’m thinking of those days and nights. Hey, if leg warmers and granny boots are back, I can reminisce about my most exciting and tragic love affair again. I hope this is just a phase.

Apple is a cult.

I love MetaFilter and I've put a link over there on the right, but this is one of the craziest things I've ever read from a MeFi link. This is an old story so you may have already read it but I can't keep from repeating the story!

It's from a page on a religious website called "Objective: Christian Ministries" and the article is titled "Evolutionism Propaganda". First the writer, Dr. Richard Paley who is a teacher of Divinity and Theobiology, bashes PBS as a purveyor of "anti-Christian junk". then he talks about Pokemon and I'll just have to show you the passage:

Some of the most popular vehicles for this subliminal propaganda are children's television shows, books, and toys. By getting their ideas into the minds of the young, they hope to be able to do the most damage to traditional values and belief. Shows like Pokemon, which features animals "evolving" into new forms, and popular movies like Jurassic Park and X-Men provide a continuous cultural fog of Evolutionism that is impossible for innocent children to escape from.

oooooooh-kay. I guess that's kinda obvious since Pokemon DO in fact 'evolve'. but is this man trying to say that a Japanese cartoon has plotted to influence American Christian children to do anything but buy toys?! and you just have to love the picture of the Eevee key chain portrayed as "Chained to Evolutionism" - that's rich.

but then we come to the very best part! Dr. Richard Paley lets up in on the big secret...Apple Computers is a CULT! you read me right, all you pagans. here's the good doctor again:

That's right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans. Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism.

Welly welly well! You hippies have pulled the patchouli smoke over our eyes for long enough! tell us more Dr. Paley:

But is this really such a shock? Let’s look for a moment at Apple Computers. Founded by long haired hippies, this company has consistently supported 60's counter-cultural "values". But there are even darker undertones to this company than most are aware of. Consider the name of the company and its logo: an apple with a bite taken out of it. This is clearly a reference to the Fall, when Adam and Eve were tempted with an apple by the serpent. It is now Apple Computers offering us temptation, thereby aligning themselves with the forces of darkness.

This company is well known for its cult-like following. It isn't much of a stretch to say that it is a cult. Consider co-founder and leader Steve Jobs' constant exhortation through advertising (i.e. mind control) that its followers should "think different". We have to ask ourselves: "think different than whom or what?" The disturbing answer is that they want us to think different than our Christian upbringing, to reject all the values that we have been taught and to heed not the message of the Lord Jesus Christ!

ponder this: would you "call a beatnik writer or a rambling, dazed teen normal people," or do you agree that this "...is Apple's hippy roots resurfacing"? I think the Doctor has more than proved his point. Apple is a Commie cult full of hippies.

Suicide Solution?

I was having dinner at Zen when my Lake Jackson pal Emily told me about a tragic event. One of our friends has committed suicide. It just happened last Friday (I found out Monday night) and no one knows exactly why - even his long time friend and fuck-buddy Ashley D. she's been intimately associated with Mark for almost 7 years and she doesn't even know what happened. Emily and I talked about how awful it was that someone we knew was able to hide this much pain and anguish without anyone even noticing. What kinds of people are we that he wouldn't have tried to share his pain? How cold and aloof we must have seemed for him to feel so alone that he took this tragic leap. I have been horribly depressed myself lately, sometimes I call in sick to work just because I can't stand to go in public, but I've never TRULY tried to kill myself.

However, I must say that this is one of the worst times in my life. I have totally given up and I have no reason to believe that I will ever – at any time – be even remotely happy about anything. I’m fat and not likely to loose much weight in my life, I’ve never been pretty, and I’m unhappy and unloved. Even the people that still speak to me do so at their own peril. No one has any reason to speak to me or pay me any attention. I have nothing to offer and I don’t even want to pretend to have a life at this point. Frankly, if I were a guy, I wouldn’t EVER think of touching a girl like me and at this point I wouldn’t respect any man that wanted to be with me. Does that make me a snob? Well yes it does. I’ve decided in advance that I’m unfit to have a happy relationship and so I’ve decided that I’ll be alone forever. My sister is currently with a decent guy, and I hope the finally develop a mature relationship, but I think it’s over for me. Is that a sad thought to have at 31? Probably, but everyone I say this to agrees with me. If I say something like, “I, Shauna, will always be unhappy and alone.” of course they would say “Oh no! Not you, you will be happy and content.” But I know they’re wrong. This is America by God. This is the land of shallow criticism, empty emotion, and pretty pacifism. Those of us that are normal, maybe at the lowest end of normal, might as well be trolls. People like me don’t matter to anyone. I’ve blown all of the stereotypes. I’m a minority female with a partial college education that works for the state and may never go any farther than the same desk in the same window in the same building. If I was earning the second income in a happy small loving family unit, I guess I would be ok with this wage. But as it is, I really want to die. I’m embarrassed to be in this job…in this house…in this life, and sometimes I wanna die too.

So why don’t I? That’s the big question. Why did Mark actually go all the way to the point of killing himself, but I don’t? What made him so hopeless and despondent that he went thru with it? Did he have a dark secret that no one will ever know? Mental illness? Inoperable disease? Or had he just realized that nothing was ever gonna get better? Maybe his grief had become a searing flame instead of the constant dull throb that I experience. What kind of final mind fuck was that for Ashley? Here is someone that she’s had a long time relationship with that didn’t even tell her that he was thinking of doing this. And of course everyone is going to be looking to her for answers and clues, reminding her over and over that she just doesn’t know. That would suck.

Well Mark, I hope you got some relief from whatever drove you to this. You leave many of us behind questioning ourselves and our relationships. Maybe we should try harder to be there for each other and to talk to our friends more deeply. Sleep well.

A Vagabond Chapter

I finally finished reading Vanity Fair. I was just reading it during my lunch breaks at work, but I took it home this weekend and polished it off last night. You can tell he was a contemporary of Dickens and the contrast is fascinating. Thackeray's world is full of balls and soldiers and carriage rides, and Dickens is squalor and hunger and hard labor. but they both share a sense of melancholy and emotional suffering that is deep and well fleshed-out. by the end of their books you almost feel like these people are your next door neighbors. I know Becky's favorite color, Jos's most common wine choice, Pitt Crawley's deep desire to be listed in the Peerage and the shape of Mr. Osborne eyebrows when he's angry. it took me a little longer to warm up to all of these broken people, (Dickens usually gives us a clear good-hearted hero to follow from the very beginning),but it was well worth the time.

and although I still prefer Dickens since I have such a long rich history with his writing, I must say Thackeray is a very engaging author. I found myself laughing out loud at some of his asides to the audience. I felt like I was watching a play with a narrator. I'm so glad Mira Nair is directing this movie. she has a wonderful eye and I just know she'll do this work justice. I don't want to see another "Affair of the Necklace". but just to give you an example of his descriptive style, I've picked out a passage near the end of the book. he's talking about Becky Sharp, the gold-digging social climber at the core of the book Vanity Fair. She had dropped out of the story for a few "years" and he's explaining to the audience why he isn't going to give us a detailed run down of what she was doing all that time.

...it has been the wish of the present writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. I defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing this Siren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however, the Siren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink into their native element, depend on it, those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well employed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in fact the better.

isn't that great?! by this time in the book we know all about her inner demons and her wicked ways, but this is a wonderful way to summarize this and leaves the reader fully satisfied with the lack of information.