Another post. This one has thoughts regarding the New Orleans Saints in 2010

The New Orleans Saints are 2-0 after last night’s amazing, hard fought victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The year after winning the Super Bowl the Saints are playing a different style of football and winning games, which was something that Head Coach Sean Peyton said would happen.

The atmosphere in Louisiana is still one of revelry and extreme nerves. Last night, even though I watched the game in the comfort of my own home,  I could still feel the collective breath of true Saints fans being held as the thought that our beloved team my lose that game. After so many years of mediocrity and after one Super Bowl win, we as Saints’ fans have come to expect nothing but perfection.

There might be few other states in the Union that contain as rabid a pedigree of tackle football fans than Louisiana. We pride ourselves on our football and we cannot stand to lose. If anyone has the time I recommend spending a fall Friday night in a small Louisiana town watching the home team play football. There are few experiences that can rival the passion and emotion that is placed on the shoulders of those young men. (A trip to Texas, Florida, or Pennsylvania/Ohio might be the only true rival to the feelings put forth at a high school game in Louisiana.)

That being said, after years of abysmal football at the professional level coupled with the scorn and ridicule that comes with being perennially awful, Louisianans can be very proud of their NFL team. We can be so proud of our team we can now be overzealous about the whole experience and expect them to be perfect from here on out. That was the feeling I was getting from myself as I was watching the game last night.

Anything less than a win would not have been acceptable. During the game I knew that if the Saints were to lose then we would no longer be undefeated champions and possibly subject to the scarring verbal barbs of so many years past. It was an all too familiar future I was not looking forward to, matter of fact, it was a familiar future I was dreading.

This feeling is going to permeate the entire season for me, and I would suspect countless other true Saints fans this year. It is almost like we are expecting the loss to signify the end of our dominant era, even though it has just begun.

But I believe, in the best interest of our collective sanity, we need to let go of that fear. We need to realize that a loss is inevitable. We need to come to grips with the fact that maybe several losses are inevitable, but that does not mean that the Saints are has-beens or a big bunch of never-weres. It means simply that the Saints play an extremely tough sport to dominate, in a league that lends itself to parity and a level of physical and mental toughness unmatched in most other sporting venues.

I write this knowing that running back Reggie Bush has broken his leg and will probably be out for at least six weeks, maybe the entire year. I know that will be a huge loss for the Saints, but it does not signify the end of the road for them. It might mean they will lose a game or two more than they would have if Bush was strong and healthy. I have full confidence in Sean Peyton and quarterback Drew Brees to provide us with a gameplan and game play that will carry the team as champions for however long Bush may be out.

I also have full confidence that if we face the realization that the Saints might lose a game or a few games this season it will not signify the end of everything they have built. We need to keep in mind that a few losses does not commemorate a return to the jokingly awful football that our beloved Saints had made us suffer through for all those year. All it means is that the bull’s-eye is large, the competition is tough and a return to the Super Bowl is going to be sweeter than iced tea.

It's Been A Long Time plus A Small Conversation About Goals

If we allow things to pile up in our lives we can start to feel the effects on our psyches. It takes regular cleaning and regular work for us to not notice the back log of duties we each have at the end of the day. I think we can all understand the struggle between setting up and achieving our goals. We can look at each of our duties/goals for any given day as one huge project, which will naturally overwhelm us or we can look at it as just a series of individual steps that can easily be handled and completed to make our lives better. We must all attack our goals to the best of our abilities. That is the true nature of our work and our lives, walking through the various steps to reach our goals in a timely fashion.

Instructions as old as time

Where did the idea of goals and setting them up even come from? Goals are something that we are told we should all have as we grow up. Goals are something that we set for ourselves, whether we know it or not. Goals are also things that other people set up for us, whether we know it or not. We are told that we are supposed to live up to these goals and accomplish them. But where does this inherent idea of goals and achievable benchmarks of success come from? Who was the first person to set up a goal? 

Were our first goals as simple as finding food and shelter? Did we develop more advanced goals as our societies and civilizations advanced? How did the first person to rule over other people get to that point? Was that one of his goals? Did he see how good he was at hunting and getting woman so he decided his next step would be to control the fates of his fellow hunters?

Everyone struggles with how to get there!

If we look at the goals of people today have they really changed that much over time? I would suspect no since I believe that the content of our goals hasn’t changed but the context and the way we achieve those goals has. Just like those first ambitious goal setters goals we all want to stave off hunger, have a roof over our heads and reproduce with the most attractive people. Biologically and psychologically this will give us the best chances of success through all the various and accepted measure of what success means, like having offspring that best continue our genetic line, being able to feed and support those offspring and our mates, plus be seen with nothing but the best around us at all times. All human actions and emotions can be attributed to our animal/instinctual roots.

Our animal instinct drives us to seek and accomplish our goals because most of our goals are setup by ourselves and those that truly know us and care about us for our betterment, thus our success in life and eventual procreation. The same animal instinct that led and still does lead us to try and tackle the biggest animals for food, sport, and trophy leads us to try and make the right moves to become successful within the confines of our culture and society.

For instance, it would be nothing more than a feather in my proverbial cap to go out and kill the biggest deer I or anyone else could find. I would be allowed certain bragging rights within my male peer group but to say it was a necessity for survival would be disingenuous at best. Yet, for me to go out and get a high paying job with a lot of benefits for myself and my future spouse and offspring would, in light of our societal context, make a hell of a lot of sense. It certainly makes more sense than me trekking out to the woods every morning looking and praying for a giant deer to wonder across my path.

Thus our goals in life are tailor made for our positions in life through community, culture, and society itself. An interesting morsel of food for thought my brain stumbled across today.

What's Happening Here?

It’s Tuesday everyone, which means only three more days until Friday and the weekend. I do have to do some work this weekend at a volunteer appreciation thing but, thankfully, it will not take as long as the Back to School Rally was this past Saturday. However, it will still cut into my Saturday and for that I am not too happy since the college football season is so close I am getting really antsy about having to give up my Saturdays for other things.

I spent the majority of my young adult life in jobs that had me working on the weekends while most of my friends got to sit around like drunken fat cats. It was a real win for me personally when I landed a job that allowed me two whole weekend days free from the drudgery of work.

I cannot complain too much since these work Saturdays are so few and far between but I always go back in my mind to the days of nine hour Saturdays at a restaurant and I want to puke.

On another note, I am still sickened by the continual outpouring of hatred over this supposed mosque in New York City. Has there ever been a more clear cut case of religious persecution in recent times in this country? It seems obvious to me that stopping the building of the center would violate the First Amendment rights of Islamic peoples to freely practice religion wherever they choose as long as they follow local laws. To not allow this COMMUNITY CENTER to be built because you wrongly call it a mosque, wrongly tell us it is next to the World Trade Center site, and wrongly tell us that Islam is a religion of hate-filled war mongers is so disgusting and horrible you should be banned from speaking about anything, ever.

Give me a break. They are using this issue as a way to try and procure votes for their failing political ideology. The idea that they can use hate and fear to garner the votes they need is so backward and awful it makes me want to scream. The fact that it is working makes me want to move to another planet.

I think if I were ever cursed enough to have my own show on one of the 24-hour cable news stations it would just be me yelling at people for how dumb they are. Seriously, I would roll footage of what the idiots, I mean politicians, in this country say and then just berate them verbally. I would also overlay this verbal assault with actual facts, which I think would give me a real leg up against a lot of these knuckleheads since they usually just spout randomly strung together, incoherent sentence fragments.

 It is beyond disgusting that some are using this as a platform to say that all Muslims and the every tenant of the religion of Islam is behind the horrible attacks of 9/11. What? If we apply that logic to all religions in this country then no one should get to build churches anywhere because this land was violently and aggressively taken from the Native Americans, often in the name of Christianity and our "Manifest Destiny,"  and I bet they probably view all of this land as "sacred" and wish we wouldn't erect monuments to their destruction everywhere they look. 

Of course, fear mongering like this over sensitive issues is nothing new in American politics, which is why I am so thankful for our Constitution. Without it where would we be? I envision a nation full of ignorant, Christian white men slapping each other on the back and shouting at each other about how great it is that they are able to stifle any and all progress or change. Think about it; without the Constitution slavery would still be around, women wouldn't be able to vote, and education would have taken even more of a back seat to religious indoctrination. Of course by "back seat" I mean not even in the car.

Oh but have no fear because that beautiful document that our country is founded on is not safe from these lunatics either. How is it possible that the politicians who love to tout their defense of the Constitution as a motive for voting for them continually deride and ambush its most basic tenants on a regular basis? How are we even having a conversation about amending one of the most important and crucial aspects of our most important and crucial documents? Here's an idea people: How about we fix what's wrong with our policies rather than changing one of the few that actually works and makes sense? 

As if this issue didn't stink enough, we have members of both political parties coming against freedom of religion, which is what this issue is all about at its core. Why has no one brought these people to task about how they validate spitting in the face of the Constitution they so love? A quick rundown of questions I want to ask some of the people who are against this community center: First, how can you say that not allowing this Islamic community center is not about religion when your main argument is that the religion behind the center is evil and we are at war with it so we shouldn't let it be built there? Secondly, how did you graduate fifth grade with this mentality? Thirdly, why are you drooling? Finally, who elected you or said that you could speak on my behalf? 

Of course it should come as no surprise that these people do that with the Constitution when they do it with their more loved and more often quoted source on everything about life, the Bible. Their motto is to just pick and choose the best parts that fit their agenda and then forget about the rest of it, or hell even better, let's change it to fit our needs at a specific time. 

No matter how you slice it, this is an issue of religious tolerance and even if it was not one initially it has certainly become such because of the arguments used by so many that Islam is the religion of terrorist and hate.

There are some voices of reason regarding this issue. However, they just get drowned out by the constant noise machine that is our media. Rather than show us calm, reasonable voices they prefer to shove them out of the way with an ambush of idiotic and ignorant rhetoric. I really hope this idiocy stops soon because I believe that it is turning calm, rational minded people away from our political system, which means that it will only be controlled by those on the fringes. Truthfully, that scares me more than anything right now.

I am going to leave it at this for right now because I have to go and scream into my pillows. Have a good Tuesday folks. 

Time Sucks

This has been one of the slowest days ever. Time has literally stopped. I just checked my analog watch and saw the second hand quit moving. Come to find out it was because the battery had just died in this crappy old watch but the point is still the same; standard time keeping mechanisms are impotent in this office.

To make matters worse I can’t even enjoy the news today because it is still filled with hate and anti-American/Constitutional rhetoric that gets me so pissed off I just want to scream at somebody. Do you have to exchange your brain for a political office? Why does it seem that most of our politicians are ignorant fear mongers? Am I wrong?

Please someone show me some light somewhere. I implore you!

I better stop now before you are able to feel me screaming while reading this.

I would love to be running/exercising in some brand news sneakers right now. I am thinking about getting some K-Swiss Tubes. I hope you enjoy the rare behind the scenes look at how shoe endorsement deals get inked that I have linked below.  You’re welcome in advance.

Kenny Powers Gets Signed By K-Swiss - watch more funny videos

Here We Go Again

Controversy = The Same Thing Done Differently Each Week

Apparently the best way to get noticed in this country is to do a magazine cover photo shoot in the nude and covered in blood. Who knew? In the same stroke, the best way to get labeled as controversial and/or make news is to continue to do almost the exact same thing week end and week out.

The "new" cover of Rolling Stone is all anyone can seem to think or talk about all day on the internet. Am I new here on Earth or does it seem like every week or so Rolling Stone does something that people deem “controversial” or “news worthy?” How many times can you do something before it stops being controversial?

I would think that the limit on that would be three or more times, which means we can definitely move past thinking of what Rolling Stone does as controversial and start thinking of it as just what they do. That makes sense, right?

I guess not because we here in America are so overwhelmed with fascination for anything showing more than a quarter inch of bare flesh we will showcase and highlight and dissect it to no end. I suppose it should come as no surprise though since our culture seems to be probing and dissecting almost everything and anything anyone says or does these days ad nauseum.

It is enough to make me want to rip my clothes off and start snapping photos.

I also hate it when the news/magazine headlines will call certain photo shoots topless because the female subject just happens to not be wearing a shirt. I get it in that she is literally not wearing a top, but she is almost always facing the other direction giving us some coy smile/scowl or she is wearing a hand bra. In my opinion, these techniques render the “topless” term moot because we don’t get to see full breast.  

It might be just me but when you tell me a hot girl is topless I better be able to see nipple or at least more than the same amount of breast I would be able to see at the beach or at one of my sexy lingerie parties.

Perhaps I am dissecting this too much, but I am getting really tired of seeing one thousand posts about a magazine cover shoot where a female, or a male in some cases, is not wearing their Victorian era dressing gowns. Are we still so prudish? What is all the hype about?

I know it’s exciting when Katy Perry lets us see 85% of her breasts…again, but can we please keep the national discourse on the issue down to a slight murmur. Let’s just save the yelling for when they start taking pictures of her dripping honey on her naked body while penning her much anticipated and ridiculously forthcoming love missive to me. I could get worked up over that. 

On to the next one...

Challenging the person you love to a vodka cocktail drinks contest is probably not the way most people kick off their week, but Lindsey and I are not most people and there is nothing we love more than a good challenge. Especially one where we are pitted against each other and the winner actually ends up being the loser when it is all said and done. Irony is probably the one literary device we utilize the most around the house, well that and onomatopoeia. Boom!

Suffice it to say that this morning we both officially lost thanks to the latent and evil machinations of said vodka. I knew something had gone wrong in our plan when I had to pry my eyes open with a crowbar thanks to the pain from the unbearable light of that smug yellow dwarf star we call the Sun beating against the back of my skull. I think we can check this off the "Lesson not Learned, Yet" play-book because I am sure we will be back for another contest at some point. 

I wish I could say it will be a healthier less brain berating contest; like seeing who can eat the most salad or chug the most water in under six hours, but I wouldn't bet on that if I were a betting man because we already are planning to do something similar to what you are going to see in the embedded video. The only glaring difference between us and that guy however, will be when we die. Probably naked and probably covered in each other’s vomit.

Crushing my Dreams

People that know me know that one of my dreams in life is to live near a Red Robin. It may not seem like much of a dream but there are a lot of selfish people who dream of things like going to space, working at the White House, or helping families in need receive the services they should be getting in order to make sure that their children can go to school.

Flying in the face of all this selfishness is my dream of a family friendly, artery clogging dining experience within an afternoon’s drive for the betterment of the entire community. I am a quiet activist for the little guy and what better way to make the little guy bigger than by offering him a relaxed environment where he can eat a 1lb. burger topped with bacon and a fried egg.

Well imagine my surprise when I saw that in the spot where I thought a Red Robin might be going up here in Shreveport, I see that they are building something called Cheddar’s. WTF!!  Is it a cheese restaurant? Am I going to sit down and they are going to bring me a glass of fancy wine with an assortment of cheeses with special crackers?

Is this the first installment in a series of real-world satirical chain restaurants from the guys who brought us South Park’s Raisins franchise? It sounds to me like it’s the cool place to hang-out in a 1980s movie about growing up in the 1950s.

Even without that ridiculous name a cursory glance at the joint’s menu via their website has me thinking that someone is playing a sick joke on me.  What is the difference between eating at this place instead of Chili’s or Crapplebees?  Did they think we needed one more restaurant serving up tasteless, pre-processed crap? How many places can serve nursing home food and still do business?

This market is already saturated with corporate franchises that do not have to play by the same rules as the locally owned restaurants. This has to stop. My city is crying for an original and enjoyable place to dine. Am I the only one who can hear her tortured midnight pleas for justice through the thin walls of my apartment?

As an aside, I realize that Red Robin is not locally owned, but it is still so much different and better than any of the other corporate restaurants we have here. I am amazed with how many incarnations of Chili’s we have in America while people all over the world starve to death.

Can’t we send places named Cheddar’s to those countries so we here in the States don’t have to suffer under the oppressive yolk of these corporate machines? Who said that living in the land of milk and honey was easy?

Whoever runs this place obviously needs to do a much more extensive market research analysis. What self-respecting Louisianan would go to a franchised restaurant to eat Chicken Fried Steak?

Wait, on further reflection probably every single idiot in this town, since I know for sure that a lot of self-respecting Louisianans would kill someone for a big ole’ heaping helping of Chicken Fried Steak because we are fat and do not care.

A handful of Louisiana's finest!

Well, fear not faithful follower! I will continue to email the folks at Red Robin in an effort to convince them that the obese and care free citizens of Louisiana need a delicious and innovative way to maintain our desperately poor lifestyle decision-making processes. In the meantime, I will refuse to go eat at Cheddar’s until someone offers to pay for it.

The Rule of Three

The Rule of Three is this: “If something happens once it is an occurrence, if it happens twice it is a coincidence, and if the same thing happens three times it is a pattern.”

The Rule of the Three is a behavioral tool and model that I have become more and more familiar with over the past few months. It is simple and succinct. Yet underlying that simplicity is an extremely profound revelation that is brimming with truth.

It applies to every aspect of life from the simplest individual behavior to the most entrenched societal norms. I like to employ it when speaking with young people in terms of their actions in life. It is a great starting point for them to see how they are acting from a totally new perspective.

If each of us looks back and thinks about the things we have done or are doing in our lives, the veracity of The Rule of Three can be striking.

I can definitely find this pattern in my own life. I know that probably most, if not all, people could see how this rule impacts their own lives.

Spend some time thinking about how and when The Rule of Three comes into play in your own life. It might just change some behavior you needed to lose anyway. 

Don't Stop Believing

If you spend enough time doing anything you are bound to become good at it. There is always the problem of not doing something enough. This problem usually lies with the person who is not doing whatever it is that they want to do.

How many times in life have you started something and then just finished it because you were not as good as you thought you should be?

It has happened to me a number of times. I have this vision in my head of things and when they do not happen that way I think they should I tend to just stop doing it. I think a lot of that stems from the fact that most of my life certain things that I do have come easy to me and I get so frustrated when I struggle that I shut down.

An example that comes to my mind instantly is playing the guitar. I want to play and every time I start playing I really dig it. However, there comes that time in my mind when I believe I should be better at it than I am and I just throw in the towel. Rather than keeping my head up and working on it even harder I just forget about it, in a way. (Sometimes when I am sitting in the quiet solitude of an afternoon after work the thought will come to me to pick it up again but I just convince myself to not worry about it.)

I am not sure why I do this and it is not limited to guitar playing. That example just stands out in my mind.

This problem of stopping an activity when I don’t like the way it is going stares me in the face every day and it is one that I try to overcome all the time. I fail and falter, but I every day I try to do something that I believe I am not as good as I think I should be. Of course, I find that the better you think you are at something the more likely you are to be reminded that you are not, in fact, that good at it. Or at least you will find out that you are not the best at it like you had so long suspected.

Then, I believe that I have to make sure that I stay sharp with the things that I believe I am already doing well. There are plenty of those things as well.

I guess the moral of this story is to make sure that you always work hard on everything in life and the important things will rise to the top. It is also a public reminder to me to make sure that I remember to not give up on not giving up, which is exactly what I need.

They say that shame works wonders on some people to correct an action and I think that is true for me in this case.

Looking for a Little More

I have experienced a real creative drought over the past few days. I just am bogging myself down in worrying what I should speak about and am forgetting that I can speak about whatever I want because this is mine and it doesn’t matter.

It can be really intimidating to try and think of cool things to write about especially when my brain is full of things I want to say but sometimes I cannot figure out how I want to say them. I feel strongly about a lot of things and issues but there is no real outlet for me right now in my life for those thoughts. It appears to me that most people I talk to do not want to talk about those things for reasons I cannot understand.

I guess it is the polarizing nature of issues of importance that make them so hard to talk about. If people were capable of intelligent, non-biased discussion then this world would be a much better place. It would really be beneficial if people put less emotion and more intellect into voicing their convictions. But then I suppose some people would say that to have convictions implies emotion.

I just want to find an outlet for the many ramblings that ensconce themselves into my brain and want to be worked out with people who also enjoy reasonable, intelligent discussion. I want to include people who disagree with me and could paint another picture but most of the people I know who disagree with me seem to just regurgitate information they have heard elsewhere without any intelligible, independent research. Have you ever tried to have an adult discussion with someone who does not go out and research the topic at all but uses clichés, quotes, and simple-mindedness to try and make themselves appear relevant? It grosses me out when I have to talk to people like that.

I just want to be able to discuss more important issues than the usual banality. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the banality as well, but I would just like to see a more diverse array of topics discussed than it appears to me that many of the people I associate with do. I should say, that I am not sure if they want to discuss higher order topics but I have never gotten the impression I could have a lengthy, intelligent discussion about anything going on with only but two or three people.

One of my main goals right now is to try and plug myself into a group of people that want to share and discuss important issues that affect my community and the nation as a whole. I am on the lookout for groups of people that want to discuss plans and aim to lead the community in better and brighter directions. 

Interesting Inspiration

Here is an amazing eulogy written in The Dallas Morning News for EPSN producer Leah Siegel, who passed away on July 26 after fighting breast cancer for two years. She left behind three children and a husband. I never knew Mrs. Siegel, in fact I never heard of her until I read about her on Peter King’s “Monday Morning Quarterback,” but I found this article to be incredibly moving.

I think that the story of Leah Siegel is one that is particularly apropos for me at this stage in my life. As I sit here and wonder why I am on this particular road and might want to pout about my particular problems the world is quick to remind me and all of us that there is always someone going through much worse.

I will take seeing this article as a sign that I need to continue to stay positive and that no matter how “dim” it may appear to me there is always something so much worse that could happen. Life is a battle and it is all about how you handle the particular battles in your life that matter. I have found some strength in this article and am happy to post it here.

I am not so concerned about getting others to read it (although that would be great), but I want it here so that when I look back at all the things I have written I will always be reminded to keep my head up, do what I have to do get it done right, and stay strong for all of the people that love and care about me in this life.

It is amazing that someone I have never met can inspire so much. 

"Shoring" Up More Hilarious Antics

I hate to admit it but I was really looking forward to the season 2 premiere of Jersey Shore last night on MTV. The first season was a virtual repository of unintentional hilarity. Spending an hour with the cast of this show made me feel better about myself and those that I associate with. Incidentally, it also made me feel bad about myself and those that I associate with.

Perhaps I enjoy it so much because it's basically a documentary about the decline of our culture. Of course it could be because it is like going to a "different type of people" museum without having to leave the house. I am sure that I could find idiots like that in my little corner of the country but they are not on TV with the living and drinking expenses of a MTV reality show. You have to hand it to them, it's a formula that works: 

Step 1: Give a bunch of young morons a mansion 

Step 2: Make sure they have unrelenting streams of alcohol and film to capture that footage

Step 3: Roll tape!

Step 4: Hire people to rake all of the cash you make into a vault

I still remember when I use to want to be on the Real World. To have to sit here and imagine the wonderful life I would have had makes me cringe.

Either way, from my first viewing moments last year, there is something about this show that speaks to me, or at least makes me laugh out loud. I suppose that is its only real appeal. We are given a chance to watch a house full of douchebags ruin their lives for 15 minutes of fame, money, and a chance to bang fame whores all while saying the most ignorant shit outside of a Klan rally. 

If a heralding of the official decline of the culture is what you are looking for then last night’s episode did not disappoint. I do not think the first fifteen minutes of any other show on television could have crammed in so many discussions on the various ways and types of trim these knuckleheads were going to pull in from the second they touched down on South Beach. It was an unrelenting onslaught of male fantasy and testosterone. 

Not that there is anything wrong with that, however, it would have been nice if they mentioned using protection for the sake of the younger folks out there watching. (What's up responsibility?)

I think ultimately this show’s appeal can be summed up with what will undoubtedly become one of the show’s future mantras, which was uttered by the extremely obnoxious and muchin-esque cast member Snooki, “I feel like a friggin’ pilgrim from the ‘20s.”

To place it in a better context, she said this while running water over some clothes that her roommate, JWoww, had spilt some sort of alcoholic drink on. She then proceeded to put those wet and stained clothes in a garbage bag and ask what to do next. This was clearly a scene reminiscent to anyone who has studied the early twentieth century Pilgrims and their antiquated laundering techniques.

Even with all the hilariously improper historical references I got the feeling that this show is already starting to be played out. I mean the cast never really left the national consciousness during the show’s hiatus, which means we were given a chance to get bored with them, and now they are back sticking to the exact same shtick that brought them here. It all seemed a bit forced to me and while I know there is going to be plenty of crazy, slutty shenanigans throughout the season, I can’t help but hope that this is the last one.

I mean, isn't it time for these guys to make room for Redneck Beach?

At War with the War on Drugs

Lately I have seen more and more articles, videos, and talking heads blathering about ending the war on drugs. I have seen politicians talk about it and countless media outlets. In fact this November, California voters will have an opportunity to pass Proposition 19, which would allow the state to regulate marijuana like it does alcohol and cigarettes.

While there are many opinions on the use of marijuana and drugs in general, I think if you look at the facts, the current war on drugs is not working in America. We are spending billions of dollars on trying to eradicate something that is blatantly growing larger. We definitely need to change our tactic on this issue not only to save money but to save the American people. We incarcerate so many millions of our citizens for minor drug offenses when that space and money could be used for serious, violent crimes and rehabilitation and education for our citizens.

The video I have attached is an interesting and very creative way to show how this one person views the war on drugs and the society it has created. The first half shows his view of the world if we were to regulate and control marijuana like alcohol and cigarettes and the second half is our society as it stands now. Whether or not you agree with his vision we can all appreciate the creativeness of this video. If you do agree then this video is a double whammy of goodness for you.

We can debate the pros and cons of the drug war all day with some people. I just feel like our money would be better spent rehabilitating drug abusers rather than punishing them with jail time. If people do not fear punitive measures for their addictions they would be more willing to seek treatment and help. Economically, it makes sense to me because if you put drugs in the hands of professionals then you take it away from the hands of violent gangs and cartels. If this policy created underworld is deprived of its main source of income the it will dry up. 

Just think about it.

There are many problems facing America now, as there have always been. We need to start looking at new ways to tackle our problems rather than continuing the same old, failed policies. Sharing this video is my tribute to that ideal.

Here are some links for extra research on the issue if you would care to delve further into the topic:

AlterNet: Drug Section

Wall Street Journal

Drug Policy Alliance

CNBC Editorial

I believe these some good places to wet your palate no matter what side of the debate you stand on. Like just about every single imaginable topic there are plenty of resources and outlets for information no matter your viewpoint. I think it a great thing for all of us to educate ourselves on this and so many other topics. 

Enjoy the research and happy reading!

A New Day

There are several things I would like to accomplish in my life before it is all said and done. These are in no specific order, just throwing them out there.

             

            1. Open and run a bed and breakfast in a beautiful part of America or, really, a beautiful part of the world. I am handy enough to maintain the place and I love to cook so that would take care of the feeding customers part.

             

             2. Make a difference in the lives of young people in my community. I strongly believe that we need to educate our people more before we can ever hope to truly contribute to the global village, if you will. Our education system, while containing many positives, is dismally low for a country with our economic and monetary power. There must be more done to curb this dangerous problem.

             

             3. Raise a healthy and happy family. I am strongly committed to making sure that those to adjectives apply to my future family. I mean healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally. I mean happy in every single way that a family can be happy.

             

             4. I want to always be well read and constantly seek out new avenues of learning and knowledge. I just really like to read and learning new things is fun for me, so I want those things to always be a part of my life.

I am sure there are more and I bet this list will grow as I do. This is just a great place to start and set me on the course for success in my life. I am looking forward to starting a new chapter in my life soon. I think I am in for a very interesting ride. It is going to be difficult at times but I believe it is definitely going to be very interesting.

Let this roller coaster ride video stand as a metaphor for my life right now:

College Tour of Duty

My day was spent taking a group of young men from Volunteers for Youth Justice’s GENTS mentoring program to three local colleges. The idea behind this event was to place a bug in their ears, so to speak, about getting into college and the options that are available to them right here in the local area.

We toured Southern University Shreveport, Bossier Parish Community College, and Career Technical College of Louisiana. A big round of thanks should be given to each one of those schools and their staffs for the hard work, excellent tours, and dedication to making sure that every student in our area knows that a college education is accessible to them, no matter their situation.

We got to cruise in style thanks to A-1 Charter.

They touched on all the issues that anyone considering college and higher education in general faces. Financial aid was the most boring but most important aspect of the each session. However, I feel that each school did an excellent job of talking about the subject without making anyone want to cut their ears off and run screaming out the door in tears of boredom.

Monetary issues are of special concern to this particular crew since the majority of the young people we work with on a daily basis come from low income families.  Today was an excellent and interesting way to introduce them to the idea that paying for a higher education and, hopefully, a higher standard of living are not out of their reach.  

To make it even better, we were treated to a free lunch from Po-boy Express, which if you live in the Shreveport area, I highly recommend for some of the best sandwiches money can buy. Plus, if the order is the right size they will deliver to you. I mean, it doesn’t get much better than someone bringing you delicious sandwiches no matter where you are.

Overall, i really believe today was a great opportunity to spend some serious time with a part of our population that is underserved by well intentioned young professionals and people that genuinely care about them and their futures. Honestly, it was a great chance to spend time with kids in general. I get a big kick out of working with young people because their take on the world is so varied and yet so moldable.

Kids who are seen as delinquent or troubled bring their own special set of needs and problems, perhaps obviously, but when you reach them and get to spend one on one time with them it is such a life altering experience. Hopefully in a positive for both the young person and myself. As I can only speak for myself, today was definitely a case of it being a positive for me.

I had some very interesting conversations with boys ranging from 11 to 16, from all over the city, and with a whole host of different outlooks on  education and higher education in particular. Truthfully, their whole outlook on life is so different and varied from my own I constantly learn from just talking to them.

Usually I only get to visit with these juveniles when they are in trouble for truancy issues. So, as one might expect, they are usually not elated and chipper when they are in my office. Today was different in that these boys wanted to be there, for the most part, and I was able to just talk to them about girls, college, and everything in between. 

I have to say it was one of the more interesting days I have had in the six months that I have been on the job and an excellent break from the monotony of sitting in an office all day waiting for the “troubled ones” to come see me. I was pleased with the tours themselves as well as the young men’s attitude and behavior throughout the day.

Hopefully this in the future for all those great kids.

In the end, I think I might have taken more away from the experience then they did in the long run. But I believe that is more a factor of my age and situation than their unwillingness to engage in learning opportunities directed at offering them a better future. 

Maddening Monday

Well it is another wonderful Monday at a job that it looks like I won’t have after Friday. Needless to say, it is very hard to get up in the morning and come here knowing that I probably won’t be here after this week.

I was told this morning by my boss that if they get the funding after we are let go, then we would just come back as if nothing had happened.

“It will be like you got a paid vacation, basically,” she said.

This is exactly where I won't be next week.

What? A paid vacation? Paid vacations are usually happy times where you do not have to scramble looking around for a job or worry about your future knowing that when it is all said and done you can go back to your job.

This would not be a paid vacation. It would be a nerve racking week or two where I am unemployed and looking for jobs, yet hanging my hopes that I might get called back. That does not work for me and I believe is indicative of the mentality the higher-ups around here are taking regarding this “unfortunate termination of employment” as they have taken to calling it.

Oh, and the assumption that I am going to get paid for this vacation would not be there since I would be unemployed, not just on vacation. I will stop; I think you get my point.

In “you would have to be dead to not have head something about this” news, the fourth season of Mad Men premiered last night and took my girlfriend’s attention away from me for a whole hour. Oh no! 

Actually, it was an excellent chance for us to catch up on our favorite cast of characters that do nothing but drink and smoke all day while making money and looking good. If there is a safe and effective way to travel back in time and take a job in an ad agency in 1960s New York City then I would love to know about it. Oh, and I will take the job. 

I bet that this is the best dressed cast for a television show ever. There is probably not one person on that show who would have trouble getting laid. I will take the job!

Handsome Devils

This show perplexes me so much because never has less seemed to happen while so much is going on. It is like each episode does nothing to advance the plot but by the end of the season you are nowhere near where we started out. And then apparently this season takes place almost an entire year after the last, which just confused me even more until I realized about half-way through what was going on.

All of the “action” flies under the radar, invisible to even the most discerning viewer. It makes for the most enjoyable and frustrating hour of television ever. Who would have thought someone would create a show that forces you to pay attention to the intricacies in plot and writing. Incredible!

I bet they need intelligent actors and actresses for each role. You know, to play out the subtleties of each episode in a real and convincing way. Someone who is not too over the top, yet still stands out, to give a sense of realism to the world the characters inhabit. It must be really taxing to actually get picked to be on Mad Men even if it is for the most trivial parts. The folks over in casting probably have to really dig deep to find such understated and brilliant talent.

I wonder if Snooki is available?

Thursday Afternoon Pointlessness w/ Ashley Green Bookends

Inspiring? I think so too.

I am trying to overcome the huge weight of my lunch right now. This amazing lunch consisted of fried chicken, rice and gravy, cornbread, black-eyed peas, garden salad, and an apple juice because I am a big boy and can drink by myself. But it is sitting on me right now making me sleepy. I feel like R136a1 is in my stomach right now. (Inspired reference I know. I am so relevant and worldly. Thanks semi-nude Ashley Green!)

It was totally worth this "heavy" feeling though because I got all that food for three bucks. Low cost, a lot of food, plus it doesn't taste like the floor of a strip club. Pretty unbelievable. One could never claim that the imprisoned do not eat well. I can personally testify to the fact that they eat like kings three times a day. If I was poor and was not sure where my food might be coming from on a day to day basis I would commit crimes just for the meals. In truth, many of the young people detained here could very possibly be doing that. It makes sense.

In old but I just found out about it news, Nickelback, the worst thing to come out of Canada since…well, ever I think, has gotten some love from the popular video game, Rockband. Apparently there is now “Nickelback Packs” for idiots and people with absolutely no taste to download giving them the ability to mimic jamming to their favorite songs from the rock group. Incidentally, that is exactly what Nickelback has been doing for some time now.

Is "Landmine" Canadian French for Nickelback songs?

Do you know anyone that likes Nickelback? Me neither, but they are always around and always in the Top 10 or something for their music. So someone must be in love with this band or there is a huge Canadian government conspiracy to keep all things Canadian relevant in U.S. pop culture. I believe they continually buy and promote Nickelback’s albums to make sure that they are always being heard around the world. I cannot confirm this and everyone I talk to in the Canadian government tells me that I am crazy, but I believe I will one day find out the real reason behind their unexplainable success. If you ask anyone you know they will deny liking the band so there must be some reason behind their popularity.


Send money and/or donate your time if you feel like helping me out with my project to uncover some of the world's largest and most complex conspiracies. 

Yes, very inspiring indeed.

What do you call an uncool duck?

In eight days my position with my current employer will be cut due to a lack of funding. I was here for a full six months before I was let go because my employers were unable to secure funding for my job and the job of five other people. The gist of the situation has been talked about here so I will try to not rehash the whole series of events that led to this unfortunate and unforeseen set of circumstances.

Now is the time for me to move forward and get on with life. Life is full of ups, downs, struggles, and triumphs. This is just one episode in my life that can be filed under “Downer.” But at the end of the day, a lot worse things could be happening and with the support of those that love me and everyone else I will still be able to do this:

So, I am not going to let this set back set me back at all. I have gained valuable experience while I was here and have learned a lot about this world and society in which I live. I will probably look back on these past six months as the most influential and life changing of any that I have ever had. This job has given my life a charted course and I hope that I can stay on it for many years to come.

This job showed me that people who live less than a mile from struggle with circumstances far worse than any I have ever dealt with. There is real sadness in this world and I have tasted just a little bit of it. I have steeled myself to the idea that I will try and help as many people as I can in life. No matter where I end up after this is over I hope that I can continue to help people from all walks of life.

I believe that is where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to do. This job offered me great happiness, great triumphs, and some of the worst struggles I have ever dealt with. During my tenure here I struggled with how to be successful and ways to be a success more than I have at any other point in my life.

I am not sure what I am going to do next but I know where I want to head. I will work towards that goal with the same tenacity and strength of character I brought to this job and I know I will be successful. I know that the outcome for me will be positive.

That is often more than can be said for many of the families and children I have met and worked for during the course of the last six months.

On a brighter note, I ate lunch at Fertitta’s today and it was awesome. It was the perfect balance between full and too stuffed to move. As has been previously documented, "The Muffy" there is absolutely the best and the ambiance leaves nothing to be desired. Who can complain about eating in a room where you are probably at least three generations younger than the next youngest person? What a pick me up!

My friend Ryan and his new t-shirt

To make things better, I even managed to sneak a nap afterwards as I wind down the rest of my lame duck tenure here at work. That and a whole lot of reading, writing, and posting on the internet are all I have and will do until next Friday.

Inception is a synonym for Beginning.

For me, Monday nights often present the best times to attend a movie at the local theater. The main reason is because it seems that there are generally less people out and about on a Monday. (Perhaps they are still recovering from the previous weekend’s excesses or are just too tired from getting back to work to leave the house.) No matter why the dearth of people, it always equals less of a chance that someone will be rude, talk too much, or bring their unwanted and obnoxious children to the theater and ruin the film.

Why are you even here?

“Why are you going see kids’ movies all the time,” you might ask, perhaps confused as to why there are so many children in the theaters where I see movies.

“I am not going see kids’ movies every time curious and outspoken stranger,” I would retort. “Just Toy Story 3 so far this summer, and besides, I have found that in their own ignorance people will often bring their kids to “adult’ movies. I cannot fathom why this happens but it does and it pisses me off greatly. So I try to go see movies on Mondays any time I can to avoid a lot of people and the baggage that comes with being around the general, common sense-free public.”

So, this past Monday, I went and saw the one movie I have been waiting all summer for, Inception. This was the one movie that was not Toy Story 3 that instantly perked my interest when I saw the trailers for it.

I have read a lot of mixed feelings on this film, most of them positive for a multitude of reasons. Some critics say that it was a godsend and a boost to the rather dull summer movie season while others rag the film for being implausible or too incoherent.

Well I am here to tell that this movie is all three of those things and possibly more. There is no quick explanation of what happens in the movie, which is great because now you have to go see it. Isn’t that why movies are made I ask rhetorically?

As Roger Ebert said in his review, the movie also cannot be spoiled. If anyone were to tell you the end, you would just stare slack-jawed because you would not understand what this movie spoiling dolt of a so-called “friend” is talking about. Yet to try and explain the movie will leave you desperate for more than a retelling can offer.

I cannot remember the last time a movie fully engrossed me in every aspect of it the way Inception did. From the beginning to the very end and well beyond the credits, I was totally wrapped up in the story. There was a complete loss of elapsed time while watching the movie, which is a quality of dreams that is pointed to a few times during the movie itself. This is a happy coincidence because at a running time of 2 hours and 28 minutes I need to lose track of time or I will lose track of my mind sitting in a theater for that long.

Some people have said that they had trouble following the movie but I found the opposite to be true. Yes, this movie is driven by a plot more complex than Fermat’s Last Theorem, but director Christopher Nolan seamlessly moves the movie along so that you are able to stay focused on the over-arching goals of the film without getting bogged down in the minutia of a multi-layered plot. It is expertly done and I recommend this film for all aspiring writer/directors, M. Night Shyamalan comes to mind, as a clinic on how to move a movie along no matter how complicated the details might be.

Oh, and to the claims of this piece of cinematic fiction being implausible, well of course it is implausible. First of all, it is a piece of fiction writing put on screen for our visual delight. Secondly, it is set in another reality or sometime in the future (it is never clear which) so the implausible is plausible in that sense and are you such a hater that you can’t appreciate anything.

(In an effort at full disclosure, I am as guilty as the next person of looking at some movies and saying, “Come on, there is no way that would happen in real life.” But I have realized over the years that the beauty of most movies is that they stem from the imagination of their creators and we want to be taken into a world where the impossible is possible.)

Besides, I never heard anyone complain that what happens in those godforsaken Twilight movies, or in Avatar, or in the innumerable hours of crap that filmmakers throw at us every year is implausible. Yet, people go and see those films and even love them to an obnoxious, nerve grating level. Either way, the fact that the movie is implausible does not merit a “would not recommend” review. If that were the case then almost all films would be subject to adverse critiques.

If you were going to use my money to go see a movie this summer I would stipulate that it must be Inception. You will not regret being treated to one of the best, most innovative stories Hollywood has put on film in some time. Oh, and while you are there I will spring for Toy Story 3 because I love it and it deserves a viewing for totally different, yet equally compelling, reasons.

Here is the trailer if you still need to be further convinced:

"The Almost Moon:" A Review

The Book's Cover

I recently just finished the novel, The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold. Sebold is also the author of The Lovely Bones, which I never read but I did see the movie, which I enjoyed. This lady tackles some insane issues in her novels and she does so in a way that it is uncomfortably comfortable to read them.

I did enjoy The Almost Moon. It was a quick read and it flowed relatively well. Most of the characters were not as deeply drawn as I would have liked, especially the main characters, Helen and her mother. However, Sebold does get across how shitty her protagonist's life was during her childhood and beyond. As you get into the meat of the novel, you realize the story will be revolving around those two and the dynamics of their extremely f-ed up relationship and how unimpressive real life can be.

The novel starts out with Helen killing her mother with a towel rather than clean her up after an uncontrollable bowel movement. Bam, throwing craziness at us right beyond the cover page. After kicking off the novel with matricide, the story delves further and further into the messed up life that her mother’s psychosis caused for Helen and her father. The repercussions flow throughout the entire novel, spilling into Helen’s adult life and messing up her relationship with her two daughters. Sebold throughly gives us the sense that in the aftermath of her childhood Helen lives in a messed up world with no real human connections and a constant longing for the love and physical touch of her parents that she never received.

Even though you wade through this psychological quagmire I recommend reading this book, if only to give you something to read when there is nothing else. While the characters may not be as colorful as we might like, the story itself has enough weight and merit that it carries you through the novel. You do get introduced to a lot of characters while never getting to know any of them well enough to develop a real emotional connection, but you can almost feel the pain and angst Helen suffers during the 24 hours following her mother’s murder and as she recalls the events of her life.

The Almost Moon is not the best book I have ever read, but it is certainly not the worst book I have ever read either. I would also wager that this is not the best book Sebold has or will ever write during her career. I am going to give it 2 out of 5 stars on my arbitrary scale of a book’s value that means nothing to anyone but me.