Genetically Co-evolved: The Elephant & The Ghetto Blaster

[pic via Brock Davis]

Progressive Rock.

King Crimson, Rush, Genesis.

These are the bands with pictures over the definition of “Pretense“, one of the worst offenses of Douchebags everywhere. I mean, I can take some proggy songs, some of the time, but when some frat boy plunks $5 into the jukebox, I pray that we aren’t in store for 80 minutes of rock opera crooning and over the top drum solos. [[1]]Although I gotta admit, you get your band for your buck with the 10 min+ songs.[[1]]

Prog Rock is one thing, but I am not ashamed to admit: Pink Floyd… is a great band. Ever since I was first enthralled by “Time”, and the rest of Dark Side of the Moon (the pinnacle of stoner rock){{1}}, The Wall (We Don’t Need No Education), both super selling mega classic rock blockbusters. [[1]]Anyone remember chillin’ out after the party, sleepin’ in the back of the truck, buzzed and cold, but happy to be among friends, underneath the starry, starry night?[[1]] Although DSotM will always be my first and favorite, my really close second is not “The Wall”, but “Animals”.

Pink Floyd’s tribute to George Orwell’s story, “Animal Farm”, this album has a short, but sweet tracklist:

1. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 1 (1:25)
2. Dogs (17:08)
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones) (11:28)
4. Sheep (10:20)
5. Pigs on the Wing, Pt. 2 (1:25)

Songs there are few, but each of the 4 animals get over 10 minutes of haunting singing and guitar solos. Sung from the perspective of the animals, songwriters Roger Waters and David Gilmour imbue each animal with a negative trait. Waters—the mastermind behind the spiral of despair that is The Wall—wrote all of the songs except one.

My favorite member of Pink Floyd{{2}}[[2]]Barring Syd Barrett, band headmaster during Pink’s early, psychadelic days[[2]], David Gilmour—the acoustic genius behind Dark Side I might add—is the writer and guitar player on one of my favorite songs of all time, “Dogs”.

Who was born in a house full of pain.
Who was trained not to spit in the fan.
Who was told what to do by the man.
Who was broken by trained personnel.

Who was fitted with collar and chain.
Who was given a seat in the stand.
Who was breaking away from the pack.
Who was only a stranger at home.

Who was ground down in the end.
Who was found dead on the phone.
Who was dragged down by the stone.

Fairey did a nice job on the new cover

Fact being that I still can’t give a solid answer on the difference between Communism & Socialism (can you?) though, admittedly a lot of the meaning behind Orwell’s story went straight over my 10 25 year old brain. If anything though, it planted the seed of my extreme distaste for greed, materialism and politricks.

While Animal Farm’s message resonated with my young soul, 1984 also hit me hard like a ton of bricks. Unlike the communist oriented Farm, ’84 was a story whose message was directed toward the lovely type of capitalistic western empire that I call home{{3}}, AND was named after the year of my birth. But nonetheless, Animal Farm wins out. I’m not stupid enough to miss the reason why though: Instead of oppressive Big Brothers and boring Ministries, you have Talking Animals™. Anthropomorphism wins again (See above elephant).

[[3]] Industrial England, Corporatist America whatever. Semantics.[[3]]

I reread it every other year or so, and like any good book, I always find new meanings & messages every time. Squealer is my most despised character though. True to his name, this greedy pig had a mastery of the enemy’s cruelest, yet most least recognizable tactic of oppression, one that is in both 1984 and Animal Farm: the corruption and controlling of the very language we speak, think and and record history with. Squealer’s sly manipulation of the clueless sheep and the hardworking and loyal—but dimwitted—Boxer, the powerhouse of Animal Farm, has gotta be some of the worst examples of the perversion of power. Yuk. I’m glad I’m no pig.

But what about you? Are you a dog, pig or sheep?

Both the bears and the ringed seals are for us indicator animals serving mankind in the same manner as the canary did for coal miners when the carbon monoxide level in the mines became too high resulting in their death and warning miners to get out before it was too late.

I hate this trope. It only serves to reinforce the fact that humans are perfectly ok with decreeing the very lives of our Earth roommates merely as tools for our own survival

Or, “Why I Still Use Styrofoam Plates”

Let’s play a game.

I’m going to spew a bunch of early-to-mid 90’s jargon. Lemme know how many words you recognize in the comments and win a prize!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8324954.stm

Some crazy shit. First its the polar ice caps melting and now the coral reefs.

I remember talking to my friend Ferngully about the environment and its greenery. How it was up to our generation to Save The Earth. Looks like we kinda dropped the baton on that one. Yes, the previous generation , yelling save the earth… Save the earth… SAVE THE EARTH! But it would seem that the baton has already dropped. It was up to our generation to stop fucking our planet up. While I was a kid in the 90’s, non-scientist grownups were too focused on their corporations and their factories to notice that recent studies have shown that pollution is not A Good Thing. They weren’t cool enough to care.

Well, I wasn’t that cool either. My other friend Mandelia thinks Captain Planet is cool. Hell no. That show was waaaay too cheesy. I hate that show not because it’s really cheesy, but because it’s campy, goody-goody vibe actually turned kids off of being Eco-Concius.

“When I grow up, I’m going to give a fuck about the planet!” (I cussed a lot as a kid. But I cared about the Environment! It all evens out.)

Maybe 2012 is the end of the earth as we know it. Maybe instead of laughing, we should have been learning.
ohsickburn.

But you know, Times Are Tough, so… yeah… about that environment. We’ll get to it Ey-sap okay? Gotta get paid first.

Just like Styrofoam plates. I know shouldn’t use them. Buuuuut… eh… it’s a barbeque after all… and the paper plates are so tiny.

The power is yours!

And So it Continues… both the eventual super takeover of the googleplex {{1}}, and my exceedingly parasitic love/hate relationship with Big mother?brother?uncle? google. [[1]]GPS is a love/hate thing. If this was some “Enemy of the State” shit, there’s no way I’d be able to survive w/o my phone and laptop.[[1]]

This has got to be one of the coolest things EVER. IWANT.

PS: I love Japan.

Last weekend

Bungie Jumping

Kaki King

Snakes on a plane, New Castle, Garage Sale, Huge TV

. : .

WordPress Amnesty Monday; July 9, 2007 5:43 p:

Bungie Jumping: : I went Bungie jumping with Mel’s friends. We had to hike up and then jumped offa cliff for fun. One of my favorite experiences of last year. Thanks ya’ll… and remember to fix yo face!!! Ashley & her sister & cuz are tons of fun… I’d like to kick it w/them sometime again…

Kaki King: Great music, that I did get around posting about in a little more detail. before. Good thing this isn’t a real music blog, or I’d be in trouble. Anyways, she plays acoustic. While you’re listening to the song, imagine that the guitar is sideways on homegirl’s lap. WOWOWOWOW! CRAZY HUH!?

Snakes on a plane: I saw it in theatres, to my surprise. I felt better as an internet citizen for seeing it though. It was entertaining, but the crowd was silent except us. Fuckers. But going with the posse (Wayne Conrad & Jason Tjalsma) made it that much better. Good times. I miss ya’ll too!

New Castle: I love this stuff. IronicallyCoincidentally, I’m drinking it right now. Mmmmm…

Garage Sale: Um, I think that this was when I helped out Harold, my neighbor back in the VV with a Huge “Garage” Sale at my sister’s gym’s parking lot. Worked kinda hard (not REALLY), but it felt good helping out a friend. In return, I also picked up my current 26″ Sony Trinitron, the “Huge TV”. <== I'm a Sony TV whore. I always wanated a nice Wega…... Anyways, without Harold and my dad, half the furniture/appliances in the Mennonite Mansion wouldn’t be here! And now I play videogames in my room all the time.

Almost a year later, but better than never.

omg i love games

(just testing a plug…)

PS: My printer hella sucks. It runs out of color ink, which the display on it kindly reminds me of by flashing on and off consistently. This is a great and noticable reminder, but with the hella crappy side effect that I am unable to do anything at all with the thing. No printing in black. Not even scanning, which takes no ink whatsoever, is available to me. Fuckin’ reeks of HP’s schemes to screw us outta $… sigh… actually come to think of it, I bet its not even outta ink. THE BASTARDS

This guy gets even more cool points cuz he shares our favorite band frontman’s name!

So off we went.

9 adovada tacos each, a horchata and a beer later, we went up to the English speaking dude at Taco Bell and ordered 18 more (hey, its better than the 30 we got last time!).

Damn dude those things are sooooooo good. PLEASE, if you live in San Diego, or visit or whatever, go to TJ and get some tacos. Carne Asada’s always good, but its a consensus between the Mennonites that adovada can’t be beat. And if you can’t make it across the border for whatever reason, go down south to Chula or Southside or whatever and hit up Tacos El Gordo, which is TJ tacos @ US prices (1 for a buck vs. 3 for a $1! = KO! GGPO.)

After that mission, got back, and I wasted time. Mel said Patti was havin’ a get-together and was gonna roll, but she fell asleep.

So I did too (so I guess the “wow… sleeping early for a change” awymsg was still valid.

But of course Mel wakes up @ 1, calls me on the fone, and asks if I still wanna go.

An offer I couldn’t refuse.

So I went, met the Co-Op Crew, saw Tiff, Jose, Salo & Angelica, Patti (of course), Eric (con mujeres), Angelo, and who am I forgetting…

I just chilled on the balcony with the Co-Op & Tiff; Dana gave some interesting sermons bout ucsd politics and the co-ops. I could tell he was passionate about his shit; speaking with force and conviction about the urge to punch VC Watson in the stomach.

Tiff was cool as always: I really felt like you were tryin’ to get to know me better, thanks for askin me how I’ve been. I know I wasn’t too responsive, but someday, we’ll sit down and talk, like that time in….TJ

… the connections are uncanny!

Anyway, a lotta shit has changed since I put this site up and left it to stagnate.

For those not in the know, I live in Rancho Penasquitos now, 20 minutes from school. It may be a far drive (but not as far as you think, it’s like 6 min from Ferny’s), but damn is it worth it.

PLACE IS FUCKING HUGE.

Its a nice 2-story deal that houses Melanie Natividad, Susie Parras, Tidiane Diallo, Arash Haile, myself, and Ken xxx.

A lotta ya’ll may know the first 4 people, but dunno who Ken is.
Ken is another story.

With all those people, there’s still room to spare too!

But yeah, we got the hook up with an in-house studio courtesy of Arash, a jacuzzi (indoors even), a weight room (soon to be converted to THE SPOT), and get this, a patio with a canyon view. Sunsets are amazing each and every day. Hell, it even came with a couple of couches, a fridge, washer/dryer and (possiblymaybe) a big screen tv.

But that’s just the house in general. Head upstairs and to the right and you got my room. Lemme just say that the BATHROOM is bigger than the room I was living at in Mira Mesa. And I got a patio and a tub. NICE.

But enough about the house. I’m sure everyone who knew about it are tired of the “Mennonite Mansion Mob” goin on and on about it.

Call me up and come vist though!

Speaking of which, my phone hella broke on me. Everything worked EXCEPT the menu button. For those of you with Nokias, its the one that you push to unlock your phone, go into the menu, check missed calls and messages, etc etc. Basically, my phone became 50% disfunctional because of one little button. Which brings me to my pont. I gotta new one, but since that button doesn’t work, I can’t see a lotta the #’s I had on it. I would suppose you all know the drill…

Let’s see what else has changed…

Oh, I’m officially single again. Yeah, even though me and Adry “broke up” back when school ended, we pretty much hung exclusively with each other. Bridge comes and goes though, and Adry finds herself diggin YA black/island boy again, hahaha. I’ve yet to meet David, but the fool’s gotta be cool.

So expect a return of the “blah blah blah i wanna girl” type posts that I mocked round this time last year.

Stuff 2 Talk about Next Time
Bridge
Roommates

Oh, Some things don’t change though: I’m still undeclared.