ranting on July 22nd

I want fewer attachments , I feel tethered down to social networking these days.

it's weird that I update myspace and facebook like I used to update my journal...

I was watching all these skateboarding kids on my friend's skate DVD and t I want to balance all these out but the constant updates and all of the constant messages really arent what i want to be keeping up with. I want a quick in and out experience. IF I have time i want to write not upload pictures and see who's commented on my page and how many profile views i have. which is funny, becaue I always check.

freedom, yeah right.

I watched Mike Hawkins' Stake DVD Lurking Hard the other night and have been mulling over rebellion ever sense. See, there's a reputation associated with skateboarders as being mischievous and whacky…they were having a blast getting hurt and skating places they shouldn't. I imagined how much fun I was having when I was their age. When I was running around in San Francisco drinkin 40's in Shakespeare's garden in golden gate park. I love it. I loved watching those talented young kids skate all over the U of A in Fayetteville after knowing how many times they've been kicked out. I think it's great that you can get kicked out of somewhere for skateboarding. I love that it's so dangerous and disruptive. I love that you can only smoke in certain places. I love that you can't talk on your cell phone in your car in California. I love that there are so many rules and there is so much legislation that there are all these boundaries around us that we put on ourselves if there's not some bureaucratic body to do it for us. There are far too few people out there to subvert things and challenge the norms that no one meets anyway.

Look. We're all fucked up, we have crazy issues, we're medicated, we fuck around on our significant others, we're scared to be alone, we obsess over our body image and all the details of our day-to-day lives. We are all apart of a system that is woefully perpetuating monotony. People are rushing into marriage, babies, and Escalades the way a kid runs to a quarter toy dispenser at the grocery store. I want to run into the ferocious full-mooned night with a pastor's wife. I want to take a knife to a gunfight. I want to talk on my cell phone on the highway while I go 13 miles over the speed limit. I want to make skate ramps out of church pews. I want to blast DMX in halls of congress for a laugh. I want to take the republicans and the democrats and their financiers and put 'em on an island. I want a working democracy. I want a government that doesn't intervene when banks go bankrupt. I want to see more celebrity mug shots and stretch marks and nipple slips and sex tapes.

Cause I've got daggers for eyes and a razor for a tongue and I wont ever settle. I'll watch it in silent (and not so silent) upheaval as society comes crashing down on its self. As the rules fall apart and people fall apart with out them. I can't believe that we have these amazing lives and we continually settle for the drawl of a picket fence and the crest of the sun over a freeway divider, that erect pinnacle of our morning commute. In another world, I'd player devil's advocate. I'd be the joker to someone's batman. I'd subvert someone's grand plan for moral cohesion. I can't believe we settle. I can't believe we have free will and the ability to do so much with our lives and we don't.

I am actually debating whether I should delete myspace and facebook. What the fuck is a social networking website anyway? What's social about that? Now all I do is text. Back at Shakespeare's garden we had pagers. It was bad enough. today I'm tethered to a lot of different internet based things and i dont really need any of them. I love human interaction. I love the thrill of the chase. I love to flirt. I love going on adventures with dynamic and amazing people. I am lucky to have the people i have in my life. I miss so much of the face-to-face communication I used to have. I can't imagine being a kid now. All I'd do was post pictures of shirtless me on myspace hoping my high school crush would see it and constantly checking my sent messages to see if she read them. God it's like a prison where we cut ourselves off by immersing ourselves in technology. I am so guilty of this. If I'm alone at a bar I sit there and text the whole time. I totally deny myself the opportunity to experience something random and amazing just because I can check facebook on my blackberry and I can send instant messages on my iphone and post on twitter all of my bathroom breaks during the day.

I'm gonna be the bathroom guy on twitter. I'm gonna start a profile and all I'll do is update it when I have a bodily function. That has as much relevance as anything else people post.

Ugh. I'm stagnant because I don't know how to take over the world. I'm stuck because I go to jail for parking tickets. What happens when I try and ramp my jet-powered bicycle over the white house? I'm in jail for life.


Our models for life and behavior are flawed. Our god is whoever is doing the new Nike, or Gucci ad campaign. Our god is the MTV producer who tells us what to do.


There is so much more potential in people than we are exercising.

It's like the joker says, "I'm a dog chasing cars. I don't have plans. I just do things. I'm not a schemer." I love that. It made so much more sense to me than Harvey dent or batman. Here's someone whose only goal is to create total anarchy. He bets that he can subvert one person out of 3 and does it. There's not a lot of risk and he fucks up a lot of shit. It's brilliant. Now for a disclaimer: I don't really want to be the joker I just want more than this mediocrity. I like the idea of rules being subverted in the public circle. I like people knowing that we have freedom to get off our Asses. I don't want to blow up a bunch of people. I'm just bummed to see people so happy to take what the get. I'm so sick of 72 month no interest loan on Hummer H3's and Toyota Priuses like ants in the car pool lanes. Should we really pat someone on the back for being green because they buy a Prius? Please.


No wonder I didn't finish my political science degree. It makes me depressed. So let's go grab a skateboard and head down to our nearest historic downtown and rattle some cages. Hell, I bet you can get in trouble just by blasting iggy pop and sitting on a skateboard these days.