Oedipus

I'm the king's thirty second son
Born to him in thirty second's time
Born to him the night still young
Born to him with two eyebrows on
And that's all I was wearing
When I woke up staring at the world

My mom had been a rather crazy queen
But not at all a sex machine
She liked to keep her body clean, clean
Thought the world to be quite obscene
But she retired to her chamber
And we remain quite strangers

And to see me made her awful sad
And to touch me made her awful sad
And to see me made her awful
And to touch me made her awful

I'm the king's thirty second son
And all it took was thirty second's time
But a spoiled little prince I was not
Had a chamber maid and a chamber pot
And there's thirty one others just like me
There's thirty one others I can be

Sometimes I'd stand by the royal wall
The sky'd be so big that it broke my soul
And i stood on my toes to catch a glimpse
Of my mother's eyes and my mother's skin
And she retired to her chamber
And we remain quite strangers

And to see me made her awful sad
And to touch me made her awful sad
And to see me made her awful
And to touch me made her awful

And one morning I woke up
And I thought Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus
Then one morning I woke up and I thought Rex, Rex, Rex
Then one morning I woke up
And I thought Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus
Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two's still counts
Gonna make it count
Gonna make it count
Gonna oh oh

Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two still counts
Gonna make it count
Gonna make it count
Gonna oh oh

Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the

I'm the king's thirty second son
There's thirty one others just like me
There's thirty one others on the way
There's thirty one others after that

Sometimes I stand by the royal gate
People screaming love and hate
And they scream
And they scream
And they scream
And they scream
Long live the king,
Long live the queen

And to see me made her awful sad
And to touch me made her awful sad
And to see me made her awful
And to touch me made her awful

And one morning I woke up
And I thought Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus
Then one morning I woke up and I thought Rex, Rex, Rex
Then one morning I woke up
And I thought Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus, Oedipus
Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two's still counts
Gonna make it count
Gonna make it count
Gonna oh oh

Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two's still a goddamn number
Thirty two's still a goddamn number

Thirty two
Thirty two
Thirty two
Thirty two
Thirty two
Thirty two
Thirty two

Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king
Long live the king

Oh, Roommates

I love my roommate

And I don't mean "Oh, my roommates cool, awesome". No. I love him. Man love at its finest.

BUT We're going through a bit of a rough patch right now...

I came home late last night and this is what greeted me at my door, written on my nice new white board (thanks Peaches).

Dear Rodell,
You left me again. This is like the seventh time in two weeks. I don't know if I can continue on in this relationship knowing you'll be gone most nights. I need your love and comfort after a long day of studying Chemistry, but you don't consider that when you decide to go out. This makes me think that you don't care about me anymore. To top off your mistreatment, you'll sleep half of the day and ignore me. Tonight, I go to bed crying. :(*

So I guess he's feeling ignored. But I don't know, I need my space. I should assert myself. No, he'll just get upset again...What should I do? Advice?


*yes there was an actual sad face at the end of his message, frown and everything

Car rides

The car ride balks home was very quiet. Quiet enough to allow me to think. So during the car ride balks I thought.

College is very fast pace, flying by the seat of your pants. I've loved every minute of it (minus the studying my ass off for econ). But there's zero chance for introspection. You're always going somewhere or doing something or getting ready to go somewhere to do something.

What did I think about? I thought about Ethiopian jazz and how American/European of a concept it actually is. I thought about the practicality of abandoning conventional ethics in certain scenarios. I thought about how the red trees had finally begin to encroach upon the green trees' last resistance compound and the green trees probably didn't have more than a couple weeks. I thought about love. I thought about crappy french vanilla "cappuccinos".


And then break turned out to be a blur. Hang out, go home, call other friend(s), go see family, see more friends while making plans to hang out with other friends. Fun but hectic.

And then I come balks and have to study for exams. And take exams. Lots of things have happened/occurred to me that i want to write about, but it's been hard to find time. Which is why I'm writing at 5:30 in the morning.

More to come later.

Turkey Break

With a delicious bird coupled with copious amounts of various starches looming in the near future, what could possibly make me happier?

Going home.

Going home means seeing good friends balks home. It means sleeping in a reasonably comfortable bed. It means not having to wear flip-flops in the god forsaken (one word or two?) shower. It means not having to lug your laundry to a laundry room.

I can't wait. I woke up around 4:30 this morning anxious/excited to be going home.

Then I was pissed b/c it was 4:30. Such is life

I come balks Friday night.

"But if you really cared for her
Then you would've never hit the airport to follow your dreams"

It's fun to dream

"Is this it!?!?, is this what I got all those ass whupping's for, I had a dream once, it was a dream that little black boys and little black girls would drink from the river of prosperity, freed from the thirst of oppression, but lo and behold some four decades later,, what have i found, but a bunch of trifling, shiftless, good for nothing niggas, and I know some of you don't want to hear that word, its the ugliest word in the English language, but that's what i see now...niggas!!!, and you don't want to be a nigga, cuz niggas are living contradictions, niggas are full of unfulfilled ambitions, niggas watch and wane, niggas love to complain, niggas love to hear themselves talk but hate to explain. Niggas love being another man's judge and jury, niggas procrastinate until it's time to worry, niggas love to be late, niggas hate to hurry!.......Black Entertainment Television is the worse thing I've ever seen in my life....Usher, Michael Jackson is not a genre of music...and now I would like to talk about Soul Plane...I've seen whats around the corner, I've seen whats over the horizon and I promise you, you niggas have nothing to celebrate and no, I wont get there with you...I'm goin' to Canada!


Boondocks writer, Aaron McGruder, always emphasizes that his comic-strip-gone-cartoon is primarily for entertainment. With a combination of ridiculous characters, a deep, intelligent social criticism, and enough vulgarity to make me giggle like a school girl, it's hard to categorize the award-winning hit Boondocks as anything other than "entertaining".

I made up the award-winning part. But it should win awards, because it's the funniest show that's ever been on TV.

However, the clip above is actually pretty serious and sums up how a lot of black people actually feel. I feel a blog post about black people coming up...

This show is completely worth watching for one character alone: Uncle Ruckus



Check him out.
Check the show out.
Or just check out some random black person.

The Perils of College Life...

I should not be awake right now. I'm going to be fucking miserable tomorrow at the game which i have to start getting ready for in about two hrs. (WAHOO-mother effin-WA)
It's been an interesting night:

I went to Red Robin tonight for a late dinner. It was amazing; one of the best meals I've had in awhile. I got back around 10:30, watched Tommy boy for awhile and went to bed at midnight, because I have to get up at 7.

I slept for about an hour and a half until one of my friends coming back from a night out woke me up (to ask me why i was asleep...jackass). I had trouble getting balks to sleep, so I went to the room next to mine and hung out with two guys who also stayed in tonight. Played a little Halo, joked around, got tired again so i went to my room. Another friend of mine, BK, came in shortly after and said "Hey, have you seen Brady (my good friend)?"

He then proceeded to tell me that he was at a party with Brady and watched him get drunk off his ass (apparently he was drinking straight from a handle) and that he was gonna be in a horrible condition when he got home. BK was pretty drunk and it was to the point where he sobered up to tell me how bad Brady was, which worried me. I called Brady and he answered but we got cut off due to crappy service. He got in a couple of words before we got disconnected so I knew who he was with and wasn't worried anymore (Brady's a big boy, he can take care of himself, right?). I get in bed again when Doozy comes to my door and tells me "hey, Brady won't listen to me and I had to carry him home, go getcha boy." Doozy was drunk so I told him to go to bed and went to see what was up. I walk down the hall to see what's up with Brady. He's half-sitting, half-sprawled out on the ground, crying and staring at his phone. I run and grab a water bottle from a friends room and go balks to try and get Brady back to his room. I spend about fifteen minutes convincing him to walk balks, all the while he's blabbering about girls and why I'm still up and how Doozy abandoned him (if you know who Doozy is, know that he did NOT leave Brady. he actually walked him all the way balks from the party). His knuckles are bloody and he doesn't know why. He can hardly talk and he spits with every other word. It's disgusting.

Brady is normally an incredibly responsible, intelligent, honorable good guy to be around. This is sad. I'm not against alcohol, but drinking until you're like this is ridiculous. It isn't even fun, he's gonna wake up tomorrow still drunk and as soon as he sobers up, he will be hung over like no other.

So that's why i'm still up, and am gonna be miserable at the biggest game of the season tomorrow/today. He's gonna catch some heavy shit from me tomorrow.

It just sucks to see someone close to you so helpless...

Maybe I can get some sleep now.

Nothing personal...

When the love of others penetrates the shell, cracks the oh-so proverbial egg…that is when you will finally feel…and it will be terrifying. It will be painful and you will feel despair like you never have before and you will immediately regret every decision you ever made, every pitiful breath you took. There will be darkness. There WILL be darkness. But when the light returns you will come to understand it was all worth it. You won't see the light, you'll feel it. Its warmth will spill over you, embrace you, the warmth of coffee in the morning, sand between the toes, a kiss…you'll laugh…oh, laughter…and you'll forget the darkness, forget it until it comes back, hurting twice as bad as you remember, impossible to prepare for. They'll tell you it's imagined, to get over it. And in the light it is imagined. But darkness is the realm of imagination. As any four year old will tell you, in the dark fantasy is realer than reality …So they will be worthless to you. You'll question everything. "Is it worth it?" And yeah, of course it is, but you'll probably forget that. Who could blame you? But before you retreat back to your shell, your pathetic hermitage, contemplate this: As you scurry back to your shell, everyone will see you for what you really are. We'll have front row seats to your so-called "toughening up". And some of us will secretly enjoy it. So go ahead and crawl back; it's easier, we've all been there. We won't judge you…to your face.

And by the way, you go about being original in the most unoriginal way. There are those that are dependent, those that strive to be independent and those that just are. Most people aren't lucky enough to just be, the majority has to strive for it. But at least the majority doesn't pretend. Who do you think you're kidding? Really. People are never as stupid as you need them to be, you of all people should know that. So keep up the facade, we'll all play along. I mean, why bother? It's not my problem.

The saddest moment was when I realized you no longer fascinated me. I'm easily amused, but at some point you simply ceased to amuse me. Hell, you became boring. I was confused. I didn't want to believe it. You were more than cheesy metaphors could ever tell. I put you on a crumbling pedestal and, like all poor investments, paid for it in the end. Was it all an illusion? Or was I right in the beginning? Am I just bitter now? Will it get better? Irrelevant questions with nothing answers. Of course I'll get better, I'm not that much of a bitch. You're not boring, just repetitive. But most defense mechanisms are (if it ain't broke don't fix it). Maybe I'm to blame. Maybe I was in over my head from the start. A majority of the world's problems are caused by a lack of reasoning. People think that the fountains of goodness, of decency, of patience are endless. They are wrong. That is a statement I will undoubtedly refute in the future, but at this point in time nothing is truer.

i never finished it...


feedback?

"So, whatdya call this? Muzic?"

There are actually 80 or so songs on there. If you want the scroll bar, you'll have to click "pop-out player". Sorry it got cut off.
(if anyone knows how to fix that, let me know)

peruse at your pleasure

Stuff the vast majority of my friends like...

I was looking up random stuff and I saw this

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

I'm normally not big on stereotypes-humor. I hate Carlos Mencia. But this had some funny posts. My roommate raved about it, and so did Kanye West (it's on his blog).

It's a nice twist on the usual minority comic pointing out things that silly white people do; It's a white comedian pointing out things that silly white people do. With his "self-help" style presentation and witty explanations of the rationale behind white people's ways, Lander brings a refreshing perspective on a played out genre of comedy (Chappelle's show is the only consistently good example of racial comedy).

I'm Rick James!

Yikes

I did something I shouldn't have done last night. Something I'm gonna really regret.

I didn't go to bed last night. At all.

I stayed up on the computer blogging, facebook stalking, looking up classes for next semester, and some other things that are just as easily done during the day. I ordinarily don't go to bed until three-ish anyhow, b/c I either can't sleep or don't want to sleep. But I have practice tonight and I don't know if I'm gonna function properly. It should be interesting.

Anyhow, check this song out:

The Procession- Manchester Orchestra

What's this picture thing your talking about?

Some of Brady's artwork.




Disregard the fact this post is basically testing out how pictures work, Brady is an artistic genius.

The Dreams of the Clownfish

A good friend showed me this poem, and it might be the best poem I've ever read...

The Dreams of the Clown Fish

You are in love. It taints your food with
A hint of coffee and fills your dreams with green
Mountainsides. You have seen what beauty is
And knew it when she danced in the rain.
You have heard music in the sunrise and learned
That time is never enough as you held her hand.
You felt the butterflies in your stomach when
She entered the room. You felt the lion
Tear at your intestines when she boarded that
Plane in Savannah. And you felt the sky fall
When you saw it leave the ground and knew
That she would not come running down the
Terminal and kiss you once more.
You have built yourself, your world, by
Yourself entirely. You have been destroyed
By love, and you have stooped to rebuild
Yourself once more with only broken tools.
She loves you for the things that you have
Done, and you love her, that she does pity
Them. Together, your witches live in a dream.

Stephen Balkcim

Blogging

When I wrote my first post I started talking about this and stopped myself. But I was just browsing a couple friends blogs and the topic slapped me in the face, so I figured "what the hell...".

I was randomly perusing through blogs when I saw this:

Here's the deal about my blogs...they're gonna be 100% honest. And not like I wasn't honest in my facebook notes, but I just didn't always tell the full story, or all of my feelings. If you're afraid of hearing the truth, and seeing my life as real as it gets, then I guess don't read these.
But the way I deal with things is by writing them out...so I need a place where I can do that.

And it got me thinking...Why is it that the word "blog" allows people to dispel all inhibitions and just let it all pour out. I can't think of another medium where it is considered as sociably acceptable to spill your guts as it is on blog spot. Not that I think it's a bad thing.

So many people go through life not saying the things they want to or at least not to the people they want to. Granted, this is necessary to maintain a functioning position in society (can't tell your boss to play in traffic), but our brains eventually need to be purged of all the random crap we think of (what if I could make my key chain talk to me...what would it say?).

Journals are the perfect outlet for RATs (Random-Ass-Thoughts), right? Private (theoretically). Tangible. Can unload whatever RATs you need to, be they life-changing important or latest-addition-to-my-trash-can important, put it away and come back later to relive it all. I guess the private aspect is the most important, b/c then you don't have to worry about what people think. So why keep an journal that everyone can see? Doesn't that eliminate the purpose?

Unless we secretly wish that people are reading our journals. That they're privy to our deepest thoughts without us having to go through the hassle of telling them our deepest thoughts. Is the blogging phenomenon a sign of everyone's wish to be heard, even if only by a random stranger?

Just some jumbled thoughts. There may be a more articulate, organized post about this in the future.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. As much as I love reading, the stigma around classic literature being erudite, snobbish, and boring has a deeper hold on me than I'd like to realize. Plus, my introduction to the character Dorian Gray was through "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman". It wasn't what I expected.

First off, the book was chock full of quotables. Things that made you stop and think, put the book down, take a second to debate the validity. For instance:

"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know" (Wilde 7*)

How is Oscar defining "natural"? Is he saying that natural is the social standard/expectation and that it is actually far from a default state of being? Or is he saying that "natural" is impossible b/c humans are just representations of their surroundings and that trying to assert an identity of one's own is just too troublesome to be pursued (that may sound bleak and cynical, but that's Lord Henry/Oscar Wilde for you).

Good stuff, right?

The intro, written by some professor at Cambridge I think, says that Oscar was part of the aesthetic movement of literature. Aestheticism, according to a quick Wiki browse, was a movement that glorified beauty above all things. This term fits the book perfectly in the sense that both the topics covered in the book and the actual writing (syntax and such) of the book all dwell on beauty.

The words are so beautiful, but you see him portray contradicting ideas with the same magnificent prose style, forcing you to question the sincerity of everything he writes. But then again, if art is meant to be beautiful and art is simply "for art's sake" (the aesthetic mantra) then the only real contradicting idea in the book is beauty vs. ugliness.

Either way, Oscar Wilde is a master at what he does, and if you're looking for a thought-provoking, entertaining book, I highly recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Couple Quotes:
"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world." (p. 11)

"Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities." (p. 146)

"No theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself. "
(p. 136)

The entire preface...man, this is a cool book.

*all the page references are not an attempt to cite sources. I just wanna know what page if ever I try to go back and look them up.

And so it begins...

Blogs are unique. People write as though no one will see what they're writing and then hit "Publish Post", broadcasting themselves across the world.

Is it practice for being more comfortable with your ideas? Do people use blogspot as a mental waste bin?

A good friend told me I should start keeping a journal. I think I'm gonna keep a journal that gives me feedback.

The usual plug for yourself:
I'm in college. I defy stereotypes which, in my opinion, makes me kinda stereotypical. I love music. I dabble in the percussive arts and its many facets. I like girls. I like humor. I like thinking about things that put me out of my comfort zone. I want to better myself. I want to better the world. But those things are much harder in practice than in theory. Especially when your lazy. Yikes. I'm relatively new to putting thoughts into words, so bear with me. Did I mention I like girls?

This blog, like most blogs, will probably end up as a dump for my random thoughts and a way to practice writing.