I am a masochist

I haven't posted in awhile but I feel like writing about something that has been on my mind the past week or so.  I was sitting in class ready to fall asleep when this girl raised her hand to address the teacher.  She drew my attention because she sounded familiar.  I turned to investigate and found out that she was damn sexy.  But I instantaneously got this awkward feeling, something I haven't felt in awhile.  No, I'm not going to say "and then everthing else in the room dissappeared and it was as if the planets have alligned perfectly only to shed a glorious light upon our star-crossed love"...what do you think I am, emo?  I felt an extreme feeling of anxiousness and hatred, pure unbridled hatred.  I felt animosity towards her, and at the same time I was curious.  She spoke and it hit me, and during the break I caught her name and that was the final trickle of blood from my already vacant veins.  The similarity in names almost turned me religious.  Her name was Sharon...she was intelligent and sexy and used correct grammer.  For those who don't know, (or for those whos time I never wasted explaining the tragic story) I used to be with a psycho who fit this exact description.  I thought she was everything I wanted in a girl, and she helped me learn so much about the nature of myself and others.  She drained the compassion out of me and taught me how brutally sadistic humans can be to each other.  Her mind was tainted in a way that I can't even begin to explain, just believe that it took its toll on me.  So even after all the shit I went through with her, I see another girl who reminds me of her and think to myself...heres my chance to do it over again, maybe get it right.  WHAT THE FUCK.  Either I didn't learn my lesson or I am a masochist, because that is the dumbest fucking thing my brain has conjured up in quite some time.  I just love how something so simple, like the style of somone's hair or the way they pronounce the word "derivative", can bring back a whole stream of emotions that were just buried in the unconscious mind waiting to explode.  It reminds me why I'm a psych major.  But it's also testament to the theory of innate masochistic tendencies.  Do we need to put ourselves in situations that will ultimately bring us to emotional/physical breakdown?  I would say that physical masochism is just a side effect of severe emotional masochism.  Somone who needs pain bad enough to inflict it physically, seems a bit extreme.  What I'm saying is that everyone has masochistic thoughts and desires, at least to a certain extent.  People fear the unknown, and this might be a way to cope with that.  I can look at this girl and lie to myself all I want about how things could be different and we would start with a clean slate.  But I know thats bullshit...because that strangeness and hatred will always be there.  I've the developed the ability to recognize my own lies to myself...does that count as reaching a zen-like state of self awareness?  I'm not so sure, I'll have to email the Dhali Lama later. Maybe we should all just overdose on sedatives and drive the human race into a state of emotional coma...oh wait that's already happening.

The APC Experience

This is something I wrote after I got back from seeing A Perfect Circle at the Tweeter Center in Camden on 4/27/04. Anyone who knows me will probably know that I love APC and this was absolutely the sweetest show I've ever been privy to attending. This is very imcomplete because I got bored of writing towards the end and never worked up the spunk to finish it. But if you happen to be one of those lucky ones at the concert with me, you know how this story goes. But for all of you who weren't there let me tell you that it is no fun being stuck in Camden at 1 in the morning in the shadiest bus stop in the ghetto. We missed the last bus in to Trenton and cop actually told us that we should get going because he was gonna split...AND HE HAD A GUN! We made it back safe thanks to my kick ass awesome roomate Kevin who picked us up in Trenton after a drunken cab driver dropped us off at the wrong train station. So here's what I have to say about the show:

The day seemed to last for weeks, the show was hours away and I couldn’t wait another second. The clock read 5:30, we catch a bus and then a train. Suddenly we are in the middle of ghetto Camden and it dawned on me that the culmination of my concert history was about to reach its pinnacle. Pit tickets don’t just give you awesome seats, they give you bragging rights. Walking into the “VIP” area I noticed the looks of many angry faces glaring down at us. I quickly shrug it off and enter the room with a mosh warning and an evil grin on my face. There was a group of about 20 to 30 people all gathered closely around the barricade in front of the stage. I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I was up against that metal barrier, so I pushed and shoved my way to the front. And there I was, front and center…in the shit. I wait through some gag act called Mini-Kiss. They were midgets dressed up like Kiss pretending to play Kiss music. My stoned friends found this to be hilarious. Then the Burning Brides went on and they were only partially tolerable...Nirvana wannabes. And finally the curtain drops and the stage set is completely visible. Fiber optic branches formed a canopy of marose red trees across the stage. Josh Freese suddenly appears behind the drum set following James Iha on another platform. Jeordie White walks out with Billy Howerdel and they each grab a bass and guitar, respectively. The lights were dim and most of the stage is still hidden. Then a screeching wailing sound penetrates my ears as Billy Howerdel hammers a single note. Drums lightly kick in and lights hit center stage. Before me a platform, maybe six feet off the ground, becomes visible. A sheet over the front of the platform portrays a spiraled circle. The song slowly takes shape as “Vanish” and a beating bongo drum is heard from behind the sheet. Lights from behind the tarp reveals Maynard’s silhouette to the crowd. He is beating the bongo drums and dancing awkwardly to the rhythm. Finally the main guitar and bass beats kick in and the drums disappear. Maynard’s shadow grabs the mike and utters the word “disappear” softly. He repeats this as his silhouette travels along the spiraling circle until finally “Vanish into the air”…darkness strikes the room. There is a three second pause where I can feel the anticipation of the massive concert hall, until a roaring note is screeched out by Billy’s guitar, not four feet from my ears. The tarp drops down and Maynard’s body is revealed. Still shrouded in darkness and long brown hair, he morbidly approaches the front of his altar and bounces to the beat of the war drums. They were playing “Pet”, one of the harder tracks off of The Thirteenth Step, and it sounded incredible. The crowd jolted and swayed to the beat of the pounding, powerful riffs. From start to finish each note had its place and every syllable etched the gloomy yet melodic mindset of the band members. Every song was its own performance, as evidenced by Maynard’s active physical portrayal of each piece. He proclaimed that “Thinking of You” was a tribute to “the fine art of masturbation”. The climax of the song featured Maynard’s jerky movement to the back of his platform. His simulated masturbation scene was heightened by the flashing violent white lights gleaming over and through the band. He growled “thinking of you” over and over again as he thrashed his head back and forth to the rhythm. One of my favorite performances took shape in “The Nurse Who Loved Me”. It sounded as though Tool had redone the music. It sounded darker and more sadistic than the compact disk version. It begins slower and eerier than usual. Maynard’s sinister voice propelled the song to a crashing finale of drums and wailing guitar solos that made the performance divine.

RU for Christ

I'm usually not into posting on the events of my day, but this was just an extraordinary display of my innate cold-heartedness, and I think you should read this. I drive over to College Ave. to get to my Calculus class every Monday , Wednesday, and Friday night. So I pull into the parking deck (usually the 9th level so as to avoid getting a ticket from the rutgers nazi brigade of parking services) and make my way towards Scott Hall. At about Bishop St. I'm approached by some well-dressed college man holding a small black book. Now for those of you who don't frequent the streets of College Avenue in the Bruns let me clue you in to something that has been going on for quite some time. Psychos run rampant around every turn and tree-hugging hippies lurk about dark alleyways prying on innocent students to sign their dumbass petitions to search for cleaner, more efficient energy sources or something ridiculous like that. Most Rutgers students are used to just blowing them off and keeping on their way towards the land of the fat Darryl, but occasionally some slip through the cracks. So this person calmly says "Hey! It feels like it's still July 4th". Seems like a perfectly friendly thing to say to a stranger while passing by, so I responded with a stern "yup". But then things got ugly. He stopped right in front of me and proceded to tell me that he was from "RU for Christ". He barely got those words out before I replied with, "Jesus hates you. Fuck off." It seemed in order, he was going to make me late for class...that's serious business. So I continued on my way. Barely breaking stride I smile all the way to class. I was so proud of what I had just done, it was exceedingly heartless and unnecessary but it felt good to just crush the spirits of a person who whores himself out to the Christian faith. You're in college, go drink a beer and get laid you fuckin Puritan. Back to my epic story... Class begins and the professor starts describing the wonders of logarithmic functions. Not ten minutes into the class, the Christ guy walks in with possibly the saddest expression I've ever seen a human display. He takes a seat in the back of the classroom, folds his arms, and buries his head deep into the abyss of his arms. I swear he didn't lift his head all period, that's more than two hours! We caught eyes after the class ended and nothing was voiced. The look in his dark, desolate, souless eyes told the entire story. I knew right then and there that "RU for Christ" had lost a slave. Let me explain something in my defense, because I'm sure at this point many of you are thinking that I am the big asshole in this story. I was not attempting to rescue this man from a life of sucking up to "the powers that be", nor was I even being serious about Jesus actually despising the very ground he walks upon. (I don't know Jesus personally, so I can't be certain about this) I also don't hate Christians. I'm just a little creeped out by people who spend the majority of their life devoted to the practice of a religion. It can be a good thing to have faith, but when people's lives become consumed with practicing a faith they become irritable. A devout Christian at work told my friend that she felt bad for him because he didn't believe in God. She was basically telling him that he will burn in hell for all of eternity, how pleasant. Anyway I don't want to go into the religion rant so I'll leave it at that. Please remember, I'm not a hateful man...I just like to keep people on their toes.


To that Christ guy in my Calculus class: Please drop the class. You are making it very uncomfortable for me, and I'm having trouble listening to the lecture while you try your very hardest to stop yourself from crying. Your blubbering whimper keeps drowning out the teacher and you only slightly muffle the sound by driving your face into the desk.

Revelations on time and perception

When something from your past comes back and re-enters your life, a strange thing happens. You start to really feel the burden of time. I used to always think about how time was just this unimportant system of organization and I was completely wrong. I'm reading this book called A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths, and she dicusses what little bearing the true notion of time has on our bodies and ideas. She writes that our perception of this artificial system has changed the way we think and has limited our experiences throughout the course of human existence. Despite all of her research and everything she claims to be fact, I know that she is totally misrepresenting her findings. What we need to take into consideration is that our perception is all we have. The checks and balances of society do not alter our thinking, our perception alters the fundamental evolution of that society. We are biologically destined to pursue that which will increase our chance of survival. If we can space out different events into set units, then we facilitate learning and episodic memory. I would say that learning from experience is a pretty advantageous trait for an organism to possess. To get off this biological rant I always find myself engaging in, I want to talk about a phenomenon that occurs as a result of time. Let us just say, hypothetically, you spend a certain amount of time with a person. That person starts to represent something in your life. In your brain this person and your experiences with him or her will get filed in some cabinet with the heading: Fuck Buddy, or Dickwad, or Drug Dealer, or Bus Driver, or Cult Leader, or whatever. Now you have learned something. Despite your greatest efforts to smoke as much drugs as possible to unlearn all that your ninth grade World Cultures teacher tried to teach you about the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Central Africa, here you are learning about life with every human exchange. That segment of experiences has become a part of what you've become. You can look back into that cabinet and say, that experience is mine and this person means this to me. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. We have ways to take that cabinet and pry it open with every instrument of emotional destruction we can get our selfish hands on. People lie to each other, change their image, say the wrong things, write the wrong words, hump the wrong friends, laugh at each others expense, and anything else to do whatever they can for the slightest feeling of comfort. I've learned that it's exhausting to deal with that change. It's impossible to change you really are, genetics just doesn't work in our favor in that department. And don't even try to comment on your aunt who was having trouble meeting guys at dive bars in Wisconsin before she increased her bust size to double D, what she has gained in chest size she has lost in dignity so they cancel each other out. Trying to alter your emotional attachment to the time spent with a person is futile. What happened was at a different point on the timeline of existence and we need that sense of history to understand the world around us. What's right here in front of us is new, but that doesn't mean it's bad. The best you can do is get excited about what's happening, because pretty soon it'll change. And I always try to remember how comforting that can be. What would be the point of living the same present over and over again? I'd rather castrate myself with one of those Nathan's two-pronged plastic fry forks. And on that note, I leave you confused and appauled to be affiliated with somone who actually has fun writing this bullshit.