Cereal_Killer

Jim Crow in Paris, Texas

2007-03-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yet the morons among us insist on self-congratulatory back-pats on the progress of American society towards equality. Yes, there has been progress, but no, it’s not enough for anybody to pat themselves on the back about. How can anybody accuse black Americans of being paranoid about racism when the President’s home state has active, thriving cultures of bigotry like Paris?

VIOLENCE, MINUS THE MACHO BULLSHIT

2006-12-22T10:31:00.000-08:00

There is this guy I know, not very well, but somewhat. Let's call him an acquaintance. He was having trouble with his neighbors who were young black me, the kind with cornrows and gold-teeth. He is white, short, and thin, let's call him Bob. These neighbors played loud music at odd times of night and had visitors who would would drive loud cars with big speakers into their quiet neighborhood. Occasionally they would say stuff like how good his wife had been in bed the day before when he had been at work, just within his earshot. So, I'm sitting in Bob's garage one night, me, my wife, his wife, and him, just smoking and talking. Bob points across the street and tells us about his neighbors and then says that if they did anything he would go borrow a friend's sawed off shotgun, go over there, stick it under somebody's balls and blow them off. Bob has a god job, the house (which is, not surprisingly, up for sale now) is not bad either. It was all bullshit, of course, just the posturing o a weak man unwilling to take action, who instead chooses to rescue his manhood with meaningless, pointless, threats.

What was wrong here?
The first thing is that he would have to borrow the shotgun. Would a man who was willing to use violence to protect himself and his family need to â€œborrowâ€ï¿½ a weapon? Hey, Ricky, my wife is being raped, can I come over and borrow a gun?
Secondly, there is the dumbness of the fantasy. It's hard to imagine the situation where you, singlehandedly, would be able to place a shotgun near an able-bodied man's testicles. I have a hard time picturing Bob being able to hold a shotgun steady under peaceful circumstances, let alone one where speed and pressure are involved.
Thirdly, there was no question of him being violent just because of a little trash-talking and loud music. He had a family, a house, and two cars at risk, so the statement was always going to be absurd.

The truth is that people who intend to use violence almost never make threats, nor do people who see it as a viable option in a given situation. Threats are the province of people who watch too many movies, and take cinematic violence without the necessary grain of salt.
Violence is a tool, an instrument. When properly used it can remove a threat or an obstacle. When you know how to use a specific tool and there is a job that needs to be done with that tool, you just do it. It's that simple.

Technorati Tags: macho, self-defence, gun, guns, shotgun, violence, movies, fight, fighting, manhood,

Love & Earl Swagger

2006-11-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

You look at the faces of women splaying their labia on porn sites or on the faces of most of the women on Myspace and you have to wonder if any of them are like Stephen Hunter, author of The Second Saladin and Point of Impact. Actually, you have to wonder if they could be any less like him.

You see, to be even a crappy author of crassly manipulative pulp you have to have some kind of insight, some kind of inner life and interior monologue that observes even when you don’t want to observe. Desperation, the inward focus, those are what make you stupid. I want to be wet, I want to be hard, I want an orgasm and some money. Block everything else out and that’s how you become like everybody who pretends to be happy, to have what they want. That’s how you become your cousin Angela stuck in her bad marriage, stuck in a bad job, but grinning all the same.

Tags: book, books, author, writer, writers, authors, Stephen, Hunter, Earl Swagger, Point, of, Impact, The, Second, Saladin

Munich - A Movie Review

2006-10-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

Summary:
Israel goes on a global manhunt for the planners of the Munich hostage thingy, where Israeli athletes were murdered. This time it’s motherfucking personal.

I miss the days when a nation’s government do something so hopelessly dramatic and wildly impractical as embark on a mission of Bible-style revenge. Yup, those were the good old days.

I don’t think Israel was looking for justice, which is a good thing since justice is mythical in any sense, but more so in the international sense. There is no such thing as justice on the global scale. Israel was looking to purge, to rid themselves of the feeling helpless with a symbolic ass-kicking. This was revenge pure and simple, and there is something good in that. In the honesty of the feelings anyway. A little bloodshed is good for the soul.

Good-looking guys are seldom really good actors. Something about being admired, I think. Low self-esteem is good for the actor’s soul. Anyway, Eric Bana is tolerable but bland. Everybody is pretty good, but bland. Spielberg is the star of this movie, and yet nothing carries the emotional kick it should, the flashbacks to the murders of the hostages feel like so much manipulative gimmickry. The action scenes are graphic and good. There is a lot of thrusting sex and a little nudity, but nothing that will stick in your head, Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher are better at that shit. Basically, this is mediocre Spielberg, still great, but kind of not at the same time. James Cameron should have made this movie.

Technorati Tags:
movie, movies, Eric, Bana, Steven Spielberg, Jew, Jewish, Israel, Golda Meir, Israel, Israeli, Cinema, Munich, murder, murders, review, reviews, blog, blogger, blogging, blogs, blogged, Quentin, Tarantino, David, Fincher,

Largely BS

2006-10-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

"Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values."

All value is imaginary. All hope is nothing until it is something. You get my drift?

So I’m talking to this guy at work, and there is absolutely no reason for him to be friendly to me, but he is. I mean sharing personal details of his life, offering advice, patting my shoulder, all with a big, white, brotherly smile. People are so fucking full of shit.

Myspace while interesting and useful is largely bullshit. Nothing that most people want you to see is what you really want to see. Hence personals are worthless unless you are reading between the lines. Unless you know how to read between the lines. Every asshole I know wants people to like them.

All I’m saying is look out.

Technorati Tags:
myspace, relationships, love, friend, friendship, loneliness, antipathy,

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Any Retarded Motherf*cker can Blog

2006-10-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

The ease of self-publishing on The Internet has shown up a vulnerability in those of us that like to read, namely, that we like to read. It is an avenue of assault greedily exploited by those who think that they have something to say and are more than happy to triumphantly publish to the world, but not really to the world, just to us, the few who might actually bother scanning a page before closing the window.

In other words, any retarded motherfucker can blog. It’s like email now. How many emails have you gotten that you really needed to see? It’s the democratization of the Internet, the democratization of the world, now everybody has a chance to do everything. Why is this a good thing? We allow idiots to breed and have seen that that was a mistake. It’s a kind of backward evolution, where the willingness to read becomes a weakness, opens you up to the mindless drivel of the dullard community.

Tags: blog, blogging, blogger, bloggers, blogspot, blogger.com, weblog, weblogger, webloggers, weblogs, publish, publisher, publishing, publishers, editor, writing, writer, writers, write, self-publish, self-publishing, read, reader, readers, reading, Internet, Web, website, site, sites, websites

Immigrants and African Americans

2006-10-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

"Low-skilled immigrants arrive in America and take jobs away from African-Americans. Due to the lack of job opportunities, African-Americans are drawn into illegal activities, get arrested, and are then put in prison." More...

Tags: racist, racists, blog, blogs, racism, racial, black, immigration, immigrant, african-American, immigrants, race, job, jobs

Blogging Tedium

2006-10-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

This blog is apparently quite popular. It gets a lot of traffic, but look at the content. There is nothing there, nothing that anybody could consider interesting except for the most diehard political junkies. It's all arcane non-news. This is the blogosphere driven by reciprocal links and not by quality of information.

Tags: blog, blogs, blogger, bloggers, blogging, blogged, weblog, weblogger, webloggers, atrios, blogspot

Sara Evans and Gossip

2006-10-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

If you like Sara Evans and you identify with her because of her music, I can imagine that maybe her divorce could possibly be of interest to you...still there is this feeling of commoners trying to see in the palace doors to all of the attention. You will never be able to see enough because you will never be there. You won't ever get the whole story, so why bother?

There is also the fact that Sara Evans doesn't know you and really could not give a shit whether you live or die.

Tags: Sara, Evans, country, singer, music, dancing, with, the, stars

The Obsolescence of the Writer

2006-10-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

"The process of becoming obsolete or the condition of being nearly obsolete." Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary

I am writing this as my fiance sits on the bed and watches a movie about old cowboys. I sit here writing about writing, the obsolete profession. Obsolete as in being a blacksmith or a cooper or a fletcher. Not really obsolete, but not essential. Books are the most difficult of all media now, and nobody with money wants to do anything difficult. Difficulty, effort, intellectual work, that's what fucked us. Putting hard things down on paper, telling people things they didn't really want to know, that's what fucked us.

Truth is outmoded.

Tags: writing, obsolete, writers, write, literature, reading, reader, readers, read, books, novel, novels, story, stories, fiction, essays

Immigration to the USA

2006-10-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

Behind the anti-immigrationist's argument is the idea that America must be preserved as some kind of white homeland and must be preserved as such.

America was stolen from the native Americans, and yes, this piece of history has been beaten into the ground by every liberal school-teacher on Earth, every 3rd World bar-room debater, every socialist pseudo-historian. That doesn't make it any less true. It makes any American arguing for a closed border to keep out immigrants a hypocrite by definition.

Tags: immigration, mexico, USA, border

Immigration and the Color of your skin

2006-10-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

All those white Eastern Europeans during the cold war, sneaking across the iron curtain to freedom in the west? Heroes. Risking everything so that their children might be raised in a free world. All those brown Latinos sneaking across the US/Mexico border for pretty much the same reason? The scum of the earth, a peril to America's very existence. This is one of those contradictions that show how racist the motivations behind most of the anti-immigration movement are.

Tags: immigration, racism, racist, racial, Mexican, European, immigrant

Smug and Self-Important and Ready to Eat

2006-10-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I am the way I am is the fact that at work I am surrounded by an army of retarded fuck-ups, all of whom think they are smarter and more capable than everybody else. That is the nature of the retarded fuck-up. Pompous, smug, self-important, and dumb. I think stupid people should be killed and eaten. Not necessarily in that order, we could eat parts of them before they die.

If you go out of your way to make somebody’s job harder for no reason other than that you can, you need to die. Now.

If you place blame for your own mistakes (or the mistakes of your friends/lackeys) on people who are not responsible, you need to die. Slowly.

Of course, I know that I am being naïve in expecting that the people I work with should have some kind of personal honor, some kind of self-respect. I know that things like character don’t cut it in the modern working world. So if we are going to be animals, I say let’s go all the way. Fire up the grill.

Perverts

2006-10-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

It will probably of no surprise to anybody that Myspace is full of fucking perverts. All these old guys looking to get their jollies. There are countless pedophiles hooking up every day, swapping videos and roving the profiles looking for the naïve, the dumb, the vulnerable.

If you, say, put the story of your childhood abuse in your profile, yes, you might be able to find other people who have been through the same things, but you will also attract the kinds of animals who did those things to you. In addition to the serious, committed perverts, there are all of those genuinely creepy people who haven’t done anything yet. All of those normal-looking schoolteachers, bus-drivers, and maybe a disc-jockey or two with kiddie-porn on their hard-drives, just looking for their first experience.

Tags: myspace, blog, blogging, profile, bloggers, blogs, perverts, pervert, abuse, pedophile, pedophiles, pedophilia, kiddie-porn, porn

Blogging the Geniuses

2006-10-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

My own feeling is that there are better ways to journal, to deal with your own thoughts (if that's what you want to) than putting on the Internet). Blogging is not appropriate for journalling unless you want somebody to know what you are thinking. Blogging is for shit you want published. Try to understand what that word means. It's not an interior monologue, it is a conversation. The dumbasses of the blogosphere tend to forget this. They put things out there that have no value and no interest to anyone else. Always remember that you personal shit is your is your personal shit. This is for your edification, my child.

I have a very low tolerance for bullshit, which makes me a hard person to work with, and were I to have enough power a very hard person to work for. Assuming you are full of shit which most people are.

Nothing I think, nothing I write will have a big audience. People will not like you for telling them the truth. My most profitable and widely read writing was on a blog I had a few years back. It was me bashing other people on their blogs. Sort of trolling the blogosphere if you will. It was widely read because people were genuinely offended when I was honest about how utterly lame they were, how banal their thoughts were. I was hated. People hate you if what you want to do is get things done instead of posing, instead of laughing. Nobody really wants to get anything done. They want to feel good. People don't get that life isn't about feeling good. There is no happiness, no satisfaction, there is only more things to do, more work. You get your kids to where they can go to school, you feed and clothe them all through it, then you get them into a college and you spend your life lending them money to get over some problem. More. Always something new to get done.

"Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows that the good guys lost" - Concrete Blonde

technorati tags: writng words writer writer writers blog blogging blogs bloggers blogger despair depression antisocial antipathy
del.icio.us tags: writng words writer writer writers blog blogging blogs bloggers blogger despair depression antisocial antipathy
icerocket tags: writng words writer writer writers blog blogging blogs bloggers blogger despair depression antisocial antipathy

USA Immigration & Money

2006-10-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

Life is about money. Like it or not. This is what those opposed to immigration in the USA fail to understand.

Big business likes immigration because it makes them money. Obviously someone from the 3rd World will be willing to work for less than someone who grew up in America's relative comfort. But understand this:
once someone uses the term "corporate greed" or something that means the same thing, they have made a crucial mistake. Corporations are supposed to be greedy. The idea of a market economy is to make money. A company is not there for the benefit of the community, it's not there to provide jobs and make life better for the locals, it's there to make money for the shareholders. No other reason.

If you work for Wal-Mart, you aren't "a part of the Wal-Mart family" you are an asset. You are an entity with whom Wal-Mart exchanges money for labor. Americans have become coddled into thinking that the working life is somehow more than a series of financial transactions. Nobody owes you anything. People will do what's best for them, and if Mexicans can improve their lives by working cheaply in the US then it's the right thing for them to do to come here. It's the duty of big business to find the cheapest competent labor it can.

All that said...this is also true.

Tags: business, immigration, immigrant, immigrate, USA, US, America, Wal-Mart, labor, jobs, money, economy

The Law Enforcers

2006-10-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

The police are an illusion. Fat, semi-educated power-mad bullies are of little use when the shit hits the fan. What they do is provide comfort for those who have little to do with them. It's nice to see that black-and-white going on down the highway until you have to deal with one. The inability to reason, wielding of power for the sake of wielding power, the getting off on pushing around average citizens, that is what the police do.

Your average cop is completely unused to real violence and incapable of dealing with firm resistance. Your Hollywood stereotypes are full of shit.

Tags: cops, cop, police

The Hospitality Industry - Pt 114

2006-09-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

He can smile with you and compliment your work this minute and then walk off to tell somebody to fire you. He stands by his decisions (often made on "instinct", meaning, poorly thought-out) wrong or right. And he is wrong a lot. A lot. You get the feeling that leaping to conclusions and uninformed reasoning are mistaken for decisiveness around here.

You act quickly without really knowing what you are doing and that's better than being observant and making intelligent assessments.

The restaurant business is known for it's ability to train a newbie in any position relatively quickly, hence the ease of replacing pretty much anybody. Firing the wrong person, or placing blame wrongly are almost without consequence to management. Cooks should never be in positions of power.

Tags: restaurants, food, service, hotel, hotels, restaurant, waiter, waiting, server, serving, professional, resort, resorts

Affiliate Programs

2006-09-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

Affiliate Programs for Bloggers.

Xondemand (adult)

Leadingedgecash

Pecash (adult)

These are all kind of adult-themed, though, leadingedge does offer alternatives to the straight adult-content ad. Xondemand offers free content for your website.

Tags: affiliate, programs, program, associate, website, webmaster, blog, blogger, tools, traffic, master, blogging, free, blogs

Leadership Styles

2006-09-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

So maybe there was a little criticism of how The Resort was being run last season. Maybe a few snide remarks, a little exasperation, who knows? The Leadership responds with a speech, the message being pretty much: "You don't like how how we do things, we don't want you here." This, of course, is aimed at the non-teamplayers.

No, it's not "if you come up with a better way of doing things, or a better idea, we will at least consider it." They won't even pretend to think about it before shitcanning it. If you don't like how they do things you need to leave, not try to make things better. Fucking leave!

This is how you wind up with a staff of gossiping whispering backstabbers and bullies. Ass-kissing Yes-people. The less-gifted you are as a leader, the more you need shit like that. Stalin, for instance, would not be my idea of a gifted leader. If you need fear to prop up your empire, you are probably short on ideas.

Tags: office, politics, resort, stalin, leadership, management, restaurant, hotel, hospitality

Killing Bill in Real Life

2006-09-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

So right now I'm watching Kill Bill Vol 2 on TNT and wondering how come large scale revenge plots never work out in real life. Maybe the Big Revenge Scheme is like the spontaneous sex-scene of your porno-movies, pure fantasy. What we want (the perfect, clean destruction of our enemies from which we walk away unscathed), is not always what we can get. Maybe real revenge is more a matter of chipping away, of going at it for years and your enemies never even knowing that you were behind it. Maybe revenge involves self-destruction.

Tags: Beatrix, kiddo, Uma Thurman, Kill Bill, David Carradine, Quentin, Tarantino, Movie, Movies, Revenge

A Sidenote

2006-09-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

"Jasmine Porch is located in a high-end resort hotel. The prices match. The food and service both aim high. While service was above average, it wasn’t out-of-its way great. And as noted, the recipes could be refined for significant improvement in bringing fine-quality ingredients the care they deserve."

Tags: Kiawah, Island, Resort, Jasmine Porch, Restaurant, food, eating, dining, fine, South Carolina, golf, tennis, review reviews, critic, criticism

Blog Search

2006-09-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

You search for any kind of resort/holiday destination on Google's Blog search engine and all you get are these glowing reviews of resorts that you know aren't all that hot. Spam. Believe nothing you read if it's good. It's a sensible strategy. If a good review of something would ultimately result in you spending money chances are, there is bullshit involved.

Tags: resort, vacation, hotel, hotels, resort, resorts, golf and tennis

*****

Had a virus this morning according to grisoft's AVG antivirus (which identified it as "trojan horse generic.xdr") , ran Panda activescan, which found something but wouldn't tell me what, Symantec's online scan found something other than what AVG found, I deleted both infected files and installed Zonealarm which I have been trying to do without. I know all of this probably sounds ridiculous, I should have installed a firewall on this PC a while ago you say. Well, I don't have a lot of time these days...

Tags: firewall, antivirus, anti virus, software, freeware, utilities, utility, avg, grisoft, program, virus, trojan horse, trojan, generic.xdr, worm, hacker, hack, tool, tools, free, firewalls, zone, alarm, zonealarm, zonelabs

Assets Unleashed

2006-09-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Watching the movie Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog) tonight I was reminded (by the Bob Hoskins character) of how our management views us, their workers. What we are are tools, means to an end, not really human. They can relate to us only insofar as we are a benefit to them, how effective we are at getting them their bonuses and praise from their masters. Anything else, our needs, our enjoyment of our work, all of it is irrelevant since it doesn't get them what they want.

Tags: movie, unleashed, jet li, work, career, job, bob hoskins, danny the dog

Kiawah and the Cycle of Illegal Immigration

2006-09-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

Kiawah Island is a gateway for illegal immigrants. They (legally) bring guest workers here to the USA, who come with the expectation of being able to make enough money to send some back home. Many don't even make enough money to eat. At that point there is no alternative but to go illegal. These disappear after a few weeks of $3.00-$70.00 bi-monthly paychecks to be replaced by other future illegals. The handful who make good paychecks (waiters, for example) tend to go home at the end of the season as intended. The dishwashers and housekeepers tend to leave illegally. Understand this: Kiawah's profitability depends on bringing in foreign workers, there aren't anywhere near enough experienced guest workers in the Lowcountry willing to drive 45-90 miles to work for $6.00-$8.00 and hour and uncertain hours to staff the resort. Kiawah cannot keep its stars and diamonds staffed by ex-convicts and junkies.

Kiawah is caught up in a cycle of bringing in, distributing illegal aliens. It doesn't affect their bottom line so, of course, there is no reason to stop. This is not a rant against illegal immigrants, nor against Kiawah, I am simply pointing out the fact that bringing people here and not paying them has broad consequences. The cause and the effect are clear. Returning home to their families after spending (sometimes borrowing) money to get here is not an option in most cases.

Technorati Tags: immigrants, illegal, immigration, immigrant, alien, aliens, Charleston, South, Carolina, lowcountry, low, country, kiawah, island, resorts, hotel, resort, vacation, golf, tennis, golfer, restaurant, restaurants,

Immigration and Work in The USA

2006-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

You see, down here in Charleston, you can still get to call grown black men "boys", that's the old south for you. The H2B Guest workers are the "boys" in this hotel. Consider the fact that no matter how well you work, no matter how hard you do your job, for a worker from Jamaica, or Russia, or Mexico, this can only be a dead-end job. You can do a beter job than most of the Americans, in a position that no American would ever consider working in, and you cannot be promoted, you cannot be given a bonus.

90% percent of immigrant workers are hicks. Farmers and people from dirt poor communities for whom even the most menial, humiliating work here is a blessing. When you have no options, American castoffs look pretty good. Every now and then though, there is an exception, the one Mexican who is smart and without opportunities in their own country. Guest worker programs have no opportunities for these people.

Tags: immigration, immigrant, h2b, hotel, resort, Charleston, South, Carolina, guest, worker, workers, Jamaica, Mexico, Russia, jamaican, Mexican, Russian, racism, bigotry, visa, visas

Roger Warren

2006-08-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

Roger Warren always struck me as a kind of airhead figurehead character, sort of like the stereotype enemies of George W. Bush use against him. His teamwork philosophy for Kiawah being like communism (looks good on paper but is bullshit in real life) and having no real presence on the Island, commanding no real respect from his managers (except that they clean up and look busy when he walks through the Sanctuary hotel). Exactly what qualifications does this guy have to run a resort? Oh yes, you bring the bullying jock-mentality and herd-think to the hospitality industry. Great idea. Kiawah's smug, complacent, back-patting good-old-white-boy management has the perfect mascot.

Tags: Kiawah, Resort, Golf, Tennis, Island, travel, vacation, golfer, golfing, vacation, hotel, beach, Charleston, South, Carolina

Flash Fiction

2006-08-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

Flash-Fiction is purely a writer's sport. I imagine that it's supposed to be about a concentrated narrative idea. What it's really about is being able to say that "I've written a story" while spending as little time working as possible. It's short attention-span writing, not "quick reading".

Tags: flash, fiction, writing, words, literature

Racism On the Island

2006-08-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

What the Jamaicans don't understand is that the Americans at the hotel see them as less human, meaning able to deal with worse conditions. What very few people understand is that there are bigot who will recoil at the word "nigger". That contempt for another race doesn't have to said to be real.

One of the reasons that hotels like Kiawah go to the trouble of getting Jamaicans in the first place is they aren't as used to racism as are African Americans. You get barely-literate people from a Third World Country you can treat them like shit and they will be happy. Jamaicans with their 90% black population just don't see the profiling and the insults. They won't be as quick to read between the lines.

Tags: racism, kiawah, travel, SC, South Carolina, golf, tennis, resort, vacation, Charleston

Writing Tools: Me & Goffice

2006-08-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

Writely online word processor does not support Opera. I use goffice. It does everything I need, even if the page formatting is a little strange sometimes.

Tags: writing, tools, freeware, online, word, Processor

Light Reading

2006-08-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

One of the things people do not think about when they first set out out to write is that reading is hard work. The application of mental effort takes discipline to sustain. Right now, reading this, your brain is working out whether I am right or not, if my point is valid. Right you may be bored, this could be because what I am writing does not interest you at all (the editor perhaps has misjudged the tastes of is readership) or it could be that you just are not thinking about it.

There is a reason that some authors sell and others collect only rejection slips. Dean Koontz to some of us is a hack with no ability to entertain, to absorb with his words, to others, he is a literary genius. Dean Koontz knows how to write easy words. James Patterson, Stephen King, Jeffrey Deaver, and without a doubt,
John Grisham, all have this ability (talent?) to get you to read without it feeling like work, to make words on a page feel more like television.

Tags: writing, bestsellers, writing, authors, writer, writers, write, literature, novels

Light Reading

2006-07-31T16:05:00.000-07:00

Minor mysteries with an affected complexity. Entertaining in a shallow way.

I do not like Nick Charles. He is pretentious, smug, and a social climber. His wife, Nora was probably as hysterical and neurotic as she was naive. He succeeded by virtue of being a one-eyed man in in the kingdom of the blind (New York's rich, sheltered white people.

Dog-Bite

2006-07-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

The first thing I feel is the hot breath on my left calf. That's when and how I know that something bad is about to happen.You see the dog didn't bark, it rushed at (me first) and that soft grass silenced the sound of it's paws. The next thing I felt was the teeth. They didn't cut into my flesh on the first bite, the tore into my pants and I panicked. Jacob swung the flashlight down and we see the fur glistening. At first I couldn't figure out what it was. I all I saw was this dark brown hairy mass getting it's footing and twisting itself to come in for that next bite. I thought about every kind of biting mammal, rabies, death, limb-loss in that first micro-second. More

Tags: dog, dogs, bite, rabies, attack, pain, suffering

Writing Disconnect

2006-07-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

To be a writer it is essential to have a disconnect with reality, meaning the present, meaning the status quo. The picture that comes to me is of a man sitting apart from a group. Picture party on a winter day, it's snowing and everybody has eaten, and is cheerful and cozy. But the writer is not subject to the moods of the group. He sits by himself and wonder if this is all as good as everybody is making it out to be.

Tags: writer, writing, isolation, writers, write

Loneliness and Writing

2006-07-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

It helps to be lonely when you write. You have all of that frustration and pain inside you and it fuels your imagination, it stirs up these deep longings inside you that bring the words and the pictures to mind.

Your mind has no contact with the day-to-day life, most of what gives you pleasure is in the mind. You have time to think, obsess, to ponder, to meditate. There are no obligations, no needs to fulfill in anybody else's life. You are there to write and nothing else.

Tags: writing, writer, write, loneliness

The Readers

2006-07-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

Most people here are like people everywhere else. If you have money you go into a bookstore to pose, to look like you are at least somewhat educated, not to get books, not to become really educated. You then go home and watch American Idol or whichever TV show is popular now.

Most people here don't know anything but what it takes to make it through a day, they don't know why that day is the way it is. Education comes from watching yor friends, from gossip, from TV, from the radio shows, not from any real seeking of deep knowledge.

This is what makes writing hard, finding the readers.

Tags: writing, writer, writes, writers, writer's

Hold on...

2006-07-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

You can't be like everybody else if you want to write. By "write", I mean to write in any way that is meaningful. There is very little in life worth writing about that isn't about death or love, and if you have experienced enough in either of these you won't be like everybody else anyway.

You have to know what it is to sit in the darkness. Life moves forward like a bullt, the only thing you can do is hold on and wait for the moment of impact. Wait to crash into something...

Tags: writing, life, death

Do you need to move away to write?

2006-07-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

To write objectively about anything you need distance, you need to be objective. I'm not saying you need to move away from home to write well, but it helps to put distance between you and what you are writing about. That's kind of what I had in mind when I came here. You need to see everything from somewhere new, find out if your ideas had more to do with you reacting to your original circumstances than with truth. That's what we do, what other reason is there. We see dead people.

A new environment provides things to compare your old world to, it can give you adventures that were just not possible before. Things that I have been exposed to in SC just weren't possible on a small island.

Tags: write, writer, writing, writers, write

Mercenary Sniper in Iraq

2006-07-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Cops Shooting Each Other

2006-07-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

3 NYC cops shot in friendly fire incident
NEW YORK (AP) — Three police officers were accidentally shot Sunday as one or more officers took aim at a pit bull attacking a member of their crew, police said. All were in stable condition.
The three officers suffered minor graze wounds and a fourth was bitten, said police Officer Doris Garcia.

The Office

2006-07-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thom Yorke

2006-07-22T16:14:00.000-07:00

"Basically, imagine a Radiohead album with all the music removed and replaced by irritating, ticking bullshit.

Oh, silly me, that’s what the last three and a half Radiohead albums have sounded like anyway. How about this: imagine that Radiohead had all their musical instruments stolen and yet were contractually obligated to deliver an album in one hour."

Somethingawful.com on Thom Yorke's album

Tags: radiohead, Thom, Yorke, music, CD, album, OK, Computer

Ageist Statement

2006-07-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

What you have to understand is that pretty much everybody under the age of, say, 30, can be classified as an airhead...yes, there are exceptions, the exceptions-prove-the-rule kind of exceptions. Read myspace profiles by age and you will see what I mean.

Tags: ageist, youth, airhead, dumbass, stupid, bloggers, blogging

Blogs

2006-07-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

Why the fuck does anyone actually read blogs that aren't by their friends? Even that is a kind of hypocritical wash-your-back-you-wash-mine kind of thing. There is no point to blogging really unless somebody actually knows what they're talking about and is saying something interesting.

The whole idea for most people is to say, to pretend that they have a real website. It is, or was at one point, a status symbol. Now it's something for little kids to pretend with. It's become a toy. Nothing wrong with language as a learning too, obviously, but there's more to this medium than that.

Tags: blogs, blogging, bloggers, blog, boring, kids, writing, writer

Writer's Markets

2006-07-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

ADVERTISING COPYWRITER: FREELANCE

We're looking for an experienced freelance copywriter who can craft a catchy and compelling headline together with punchy, persuasive body copy. Great opportunity for a pro with an inventive out-of-the-box style. Please send resume, cover letter (that MUST include per diem rates), and samples to copysearch@paceadv.com or Pace Advertising 1065 Ave. of the Americas, NY, NY 10018 Attn: Ann Forman. NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE.

Contact Information

Company: PACE Advertising
Email: copysearch@paceadv.com

Another Postcard

2006-07-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

Music Video Code provided by MySpace Video Code

espn

2006-07-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

Stupid fucker Stuart Scott doesn't, or didn't or doesn't know what ESPN stood for.

Stuart scott ESPN network sports

JD Salinger

2006-07-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

JD Salinger is talented but smug with it. I'm articulate and I am a gossiping (you can tell), sarcastic, cynic.

Bandits

2006-07-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

Now unto Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton in a movie that starts out by showing prison as a kind of summer camp...where are the rapes? Where is the anal bleeding?

Peter Jennings and the Yellow Medi

2006-07-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

I remember Peter jennings and the way that the ABC World News always seemed biased against black folks in America. If there was some racist (anti-black) incident big enough, ugly enough to be worthy of ABC nationtal news coverage there was always some news story about a black guy robbing a liquor store or raping a white woman to offer "balance". If a black guy did something good or positive, or noteworthy, there was something negative right behind it to provide "ballast".

And yes, I know that it was probably the producers/newswriters and not Jennings himself at the root, but he put himself out there at the front of it all.

Peter Jennings journalism news reporting reportage abc network racism racist media