Talk Show Nausea

July 7th, 2008 by Jimmy | Posted in Politics, Radio | No Comments »

I consider myself a talk-show junkie. I listen to AM talk shows on a fairly regular basis, say, almost every morning. I use to enjoy them a lot, but anymore I’m just finding every talk show host to be ideological pinheads who simply repeat the same drivel day-after-day. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’re on the right or left of the political spectrum — almost all of them are spewing-forth the same bullshit.

God it’s annoying, and the worst of them, Rush Limbaugh, just signed on for another $38 million a year. The airwaves will continue to be polluted. Oh, and Stephanie Miller — just as annoying. I also find the KGMI morning talk show to lack intellectual vigor; it seems more of a “filler” time slot allowing for forty-five minutes of rhetorical nonsense, kind of like putting two angry alpha-cats in box and letting them duke it out.

My alterntaive? I’ve been finding the four to five person discussion on the Bill Handel Show to be stimulating, which broadcasts out of KFI-640 AM in Los Angeles, California. Handel, I think, has a decent point-of-view on items in the news; he does consider himself to be more of a conservative, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about issues, such as same-sex marriages (which he’s in favor of). His co-hosts compliment him with their own wry comments about his “Handelisms” or the news stories. I enjoy the show, find it rather funny at times, and I don’t think Handel is completely caught-up in ideology (but I could be wrong).

Yeah!

A Thought About Movies and Real Life (with a rum and coke)

July 6th, 2008 by Jimmy | Posted in Movies, Philosophy | 1 Comment »

Movies sometimes annoy me because they take away the mundaneness of life, highlighting important events in the life of a character. For instance, last night I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time, and the movie pretty much consisted of highlights from Thompson’s acid/lsd/(insert psychoactive drug here) trips. There were no scenes that showed what Thompson was doing in between trips because that would be boring as fuck — who the hell would want to watch that? Who? The answer: no one, except for snobs who wish to attempt to isolate themselves from others by watching boring-ass movies, conditioning themselves to acquire a taste for boredom and then calling it amazing! I think one director who sometimes emphasizes the mundane is David Lynch. For instance, in his new(er) movie Inland Empire, there’s a scene in which two characters have a freakin 15-30 minute long discussion (or less than that) about buying a goddamn watch; my English professor showed that to my class, and afterwards most of us were thinking “What the fuck?”, or at least that was the expression on our faces.

I guess I just see a tendency for us, the audience, to relate our lives in relation to characters in movies, yet these characters’ lives aren’t being portrayed realistically, leaving us to see our lives as boring, uneventful sequences of event after event — but perhaps there can be beauty in the in-between times, which are lost in big event-after-event sequences like in movies. Hell, if we were to think about our lives in a third-person perspective, we would most likely speak as if we were reading a synopsis to a movie, highlighting one big event to the next, ignoring what happened in the in-between that helped contribute to who we are today. Life is then summed up like an obituary, a synopsis of our lives.

Then again, sometimes our lives do suck, in fact, they’re somtimes fucking awful and thinking about that which might be considered better is sometimes relieving.

But then I ask the question, “What’s so bad about living a fictional life and barely partaking in the real one? Is the real life better imply because it’s real?” I call bullshit, because sometimes the fictional is better. Somtimes real life is horrible, and if one can live such a life without directly affecting the lives of others in a detrimental way, I say “Good for them.”

As far as reason can take us, our lives are all that there is, so if the fake is better than the real, why choose the real? Maybe that’s why the movies are fun.

But maybe not. Despite the harshness of reality, I think what is real is better because it is real. Am I begging the question? Probably.

The Space

July 6th, 2008 by Jimmy | Posted in Philosophy, Psychology, Religion | No Comments »

Emptying an apartment is a laborious task, which is generally made easier when the emptying is really liquidating. However, what is left over is a void, a void with the imprint of furniture, with stains from spilt coffee and wine. The walls are empty, leaving only textured colors behind. I notice all these things as I lay in the middle of my living room, legs and arms spread out as if I was making a carpet angel.

But when I sit up and pan across the room, what I become the most aware of is the space that I once filled with things, things that only later were judged by individuals in terms of dollars and cents. Sarah commented that this judgement was so personal to her because those things that were for sale were up for others to value and deem worthy of being taken. It makes sense to me, the judging that is; I mean, at a yard sale, everything that we put up for sale were things that we valued as important to one degree or another. Yet, in another sense, our selling of items is an outward expression of detatchment, a detatchment from value; i.e., I’ve become detatched from certain things because I no longer need them.

I’m really getting lost here, talking about voids, emptiness, detatchment, blah blah blah… I really just want to describe the awareness of space, measureable distance, as a result of removing things from my apartment. What is left after removing things is emptiness. What is left over is an awareness of my relationship to the things that I own and how they fill the space around me. This space need not be filled only with tangible items, but can also be the space that is filled with sounds.

Do I dislike the emptiness? Yes, I think I do, which is probably why I love coffeeshops, although it tends to be coffeeshops that are filled with things. Coffeeshops like Fantasia, that allowed me to become too aware of that emptiness, are horrible places to visit; but coffeeshops like the Black Drop, that are filled with objects and sounds, are pleasing, maybe even distracting.  Maybe I enjoy filling up the space because of that annoying ticking of the mortal clock that always reminds me that life is going by one unit of measurement at a time. However, I’m not really bothered by the idea of my mortality, I’m just annoyed with the void.

Then again, this could all just be bullshit, or creative descriptions that I’ve borrowed from Heidegger and Sartre (god damn them). Potential philosophical bullshit, or potential religious bullshit that attempts to describe what the human mind is incapable of understanding. Also, it could just be psychological bullshit rooted in some kind of primitive psyche that’s fleshing itself out, or even infantile feelings resulting from my time in my mothers womb.

Whatever it is, I’m fucking aware of it, aware of the space that is between me and everything else. I might have even come to appreciate it. Hell, I might even enjoy it.

[Update: Edited for grammatical errors, along with spelling errors. Editing is the bane of my existence (not really)].

Life is Good

June 30th, 2008 by Jimmy | Posted in Life | No Comments »

This is me (not the kangaroo, but the same attitude): sitting outside, relaxing in the 80 degree sun with a cup of coffee in hand. My skin is slightly sticky, my hat slightly damp. I am in my prime.

It reminds me of my time in Marathon, Florida, people walking around in their shirts and shorts while some are red-faced from the heat. Is it just me, or are people walking slower?

Are drivers decreasing their speeds? Nope, it’s just me. Life and time seems to be crawling, but in a good way.

I haven’t much to say. The apartment is almost cleared out, my time at Western is complete, signaling the end of my time in Bellingham. Dawn is here; a chapter almost done.

Life is good.

Last Transmission From BlueBlack… For Awhile

June 29th, 2008 by Jimmy | Posted in Life | 1 Comment »

This is one of those absolutely useless posts.

This is the last transmission from my “BlueBlack” Ubuntu machine. I’m selling the monitor at the yard sale next weekend, thus I won’t be able to use the machine again until after we settle in Austin.

And its strange to look across the apartment, with items packed-up and the walls bare as if we’re just moving in. But we’re leaving. Eight weeks or more, our lives will be in transition, or will they? I suppose that depends on your view of where your life is. On certain days, my life is composed of what pours out of me, yet on other days my environment that defines life for me. Today, and henceforth, my life is a concoction of both environment and myself.

And the mortal timeclock keeps counting down. Tick, tick, tick…

In other news, I’ve found the piano-driven sounds of Tori Amos to be refreshing.

Yeah!