Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Jeff Hayman's LiveJournal:

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Friday, February 5th, 2010
8:07 pm	You're not an expert, and neither is your favorite talking head It's amazing how fast people readily form an opinion on something they really know very little about, and how quickly they convince themselves that they are, without a doubt, correct. Let's take the economy for example: I don't know shit about economics. I'm guessing most Americans don't. But when their political candidate calls for a certain economic policy, suddenly they're experts on what will work and what won't. Sure, some of it is common sense or intuition: it would make sense that reduced government control over business would allow business to flourish unrestricted. But on the flip side, it also makes sense to me that increased government spending could also create programs and employment opportunities. I don't know. I was talking to a friend once who was ranting about their economics professor and how everything he taught was wrong. "How is it wrong?" I asked. "He's just totally full of shit. He doesn't know what he's talking about," was the gist of the response. In reality, my friend's claim was politically motivated; the professor had an economic stance befitting of one political-economic idea, and she had another. And while my friend might be right; maybe the professor is full of shit, how the hell would she know? She's 19. She's a dependent, suckling off her parents' teat just like me. Her professor has had years of advanced schooling and a lifetime of experience. How can she so confidently denounce his views and believe in her own when the foundation of her views are flimsy at best? And recently when I was driving with that same friend, she was claiming that no expansion of governmental control or government program has ever been successful or benefited the country. Who knows? Maybe she's right. But meanwhile we were driving on Interstate 10, and last I remember, the Interstate Act was a pretty damn sweet government program that we all love wholeheartedly to this day. But that's not the point; it's her own confidence in her claim that bothers me. But such is the politics of the United States. Everyone thinks without a shred of doubt that they are right, that their candidate is clearly the better candidate, and anybody voting for anyone else is retarded. But really, if one candidate or party was clearly better than the other, why are all of our elections decided by mere percentage points of the popular vote? Outcomes seem more about culture and geography than actual issues. We just pretend it's about the issues. If it was actually about the issues, candidates with opposing issues would result in a larger margin of votes. But instead, the political map looks almost the same every year. Take an upper-middle class white guy living in San Mateo County for example. He would probably vote Democrat. But if you were to take that same exact person and make him grow up in Orange County, in the same state, with the same type of neighborhoods and socio-economic geography, he would probably vote Republican. Why? Because it's bullshit. It's why every four years California goes blue and Texas goes red. Not because the Democrats are somehow better for Californians and Republicans are somehow better for Texans. We vote that way because it's just what we do. You could have two circus clowns running for a public office, and their ardent followers would regurgitate their sound bites as if, not only their candidates were experts in whatever field they're choosing to talk about, but as if they themselves are experts too. The same could be said for pretty much any debatable topic. You think driving with your windows down is less fuel-efficient than air conditioning because you heard someone say it once? That's cool, you're probably right. But you're not a physicist, and neither is the person who told you, so don't act like you got a PhD in Efficient Driving. Climate change? You "know" that it's a leftist conspiracy bent on controlling the free American? How'd you figure that out? Glenn Beck told you? Is he a scientist? Are you a scientist? Have you ever actually read a periodical on the issue? I know I haven't. And you there with the Go Green shirt. You're certain that eating vegan will help stop climate change? It might, but then again, you're offsetting your carbon emissions by donating money over the internet to a "research institution" you've never heard of. And what about those who are convinced without a doubt that God exists or that God doesn't exist? How can we, the simple human being, have the knowledge of the origins of the universe, and not only believe it, but be absolutely certain that we are correct? Are you God? No? Then why do you act as an authority on his word? To think that one somehow knows the secrets of the universe, to definitively claim to know God's will, or on the flip side to definitively claim that one knows there is no God, is the pinnacle of hubris and delusional self-importance. Of course, someone is bound to be right, but that's merely by chance, the lucky bastard. I used to think I knew everything back when I was 13. I was an expert and the world was my field. Then I got older and found out I didn't know shit. You probably don't either. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
3:04 am	Shitting: the Great Equalizer One night in a Viennese hostel, I was sitting on the toilet when I saw some writing on the wall of the stall. It read: "By reading this, you just came to know about my existence in the world as a person who sat here one day doing exactly the same thing you are doing right now. We all share something in common even if it is just shitting." I've heard many quotes about many things concerning what is mankind's Great Equalizer; that is to say: what levels the playing field? What makes us all equals? What brings the fortunate down and raises the wretched from the depths of the putrid? Is it education? Guns? The Atom Bomb? Death? Yet a great disparity exists in the quality of education between the rich and the poor. Guns only raise the few who possess them. The Atom Bomb is a weapon of entitled countries. Theoretically, if there were parity in these elements, we could argue that they were equalizers, but as it is, they only do more to filter the Haves from the Have Nots. Even in death, we are not equal. Some die with memoirs and estates. Some live on in their legacy. Some are forgotten in the pauper's grave, or in their own grave unmarked resting alone. Some die honorably, saving puppies from flash floods. Others die falling down the stairs, drunk and high. Yes, in the end we're all worm food, but some situations are more dreadful than others. Some escape horrible deaths, and some don't. And yet, none of us can escape the inevitable awkward clumsiness of pooping. Kings and peasants alike are no different from each other when sitting on the john. Sure, royalty may have cushy toilet seats cleaned daily by loyal servants and get to wipe their bums with koalas and kittens, whereas bumpkins have to use tree bark. But when it comes down to it, it's still shitting. Who's to say the king isn't having one of those tough-to-push marbly days? And no one looks good taking a dump. Even the most beautiful woman in the world, for that brief moment each day, is nastiness. Farty, bloated, constipated nastiness. So as I sat on that toilet in Vienna, I thought about everyone else in the world sitting on their own toilets at that very moment. Rulers and prisoners. Saints and sinners. The fortunate and the forlorn. All taking the exact same shit. And hey, if they weren't then, they would be soon. May their seats be warm. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
3:03 am	Women and Sex from the perspective of a Humanities Major One of my coworkers the other week accused me of having no respect for woman. Her charge was in light of another coworker and me shooting the breeze, joking about what we prefer in women. It's been an ongoing joke that I require my women to have a minimum of 200 pounds, Double D cups, and be white. Apparently my coworker took this seriously. "That's all you see in women: breasts and a butt." Then she told me she had thought I was different than all the other guys: that she had thought I had respected women for who they are on the inside, not what they can provide on the outside, and that now she realizes she's all wrong, and I'm just like all the other piggish, perverted guys in the world. Needless to say, I was taken aback. I believe myself to be a rather good person when it comes to appreciating woman for who they are. I tried debating with her by citing my many friendships with girls who do not fit this physical requirement. This did not help things. She then claimed that I have these friendships, but they're not people I would date. In a sense, I don't see these friendships as women, so it doesn't really count towards helping my opinion of women. And for the women I do see as women, and thus people I would date, I hold them to a physical standard and subconsciously disregard them if they don't fit. This could explain why I have a lot of female friends, but not really any prospective relationships. Fast forward to last night. I was discussing with another coworker why I've had an ongoing off-on crush on this one girl who shall remain unnamed. In reality, she always seems unhappy, isn't actually that hot, and is kind of hard to have a conversation with. But I like her because she seems to maintain a unique sense of character, a sovereignty over her individuality and person. When my coworker asked me to explain, I explained it as such: When I see a group of girls in a group getting ready to go to a party or club, I am not attracted to any of them by principle, because to me, none of them are actual human beings. Of course I know they're human beings, and I'm sure they're very nice people, but my subconscious is still informed by my evangelical and conservative youth, as well as the following thought process: By submitting to the group of women, they are sacrificing a sense of individual. While they may have different dresses, tastes, and interests, to an uninvolved onlooker who doesn't know any of them (i.e. me), they are all practically the same. Additionally, these women are going partying / clubbing with certain intentions. Now, as someone who never really goes to parties or has never really been to a club, the only things I know about clubbing are what people perpetuate about it. When all of my friends walk around and say, "Jeff, we're going to get you to a club, you're gonna get some numbers, find some chick, and take her home," that immediately informs my impression of women at clubs. Here is how clubs work in my mind: Step 1 - Man buys woman drink. Step 2 - Man dances with woman. Step 3 - Man gets woman's number. (Step 4 - Man takes woman home.) In all of these instances, Man is the grammatical subject of the sentence. Women is first the indirect object, then the instrumental object, then the genitive object, and finally, the direct object. Although Step 2 can be switched around to read "Woman dances with man," you will never hear a club owner say "We need more men," only "We need more women," and hence "Men need more women." Women are the sought after, and men are the seekers. The club is made for men to get women. And thus, when women go to clubs (and parties), they are going with full knowledge of how it works, and thus with full knowledge that they will be objectified. When a woman allows herself to be an object, she is sacrificing her internal subject. And to me, when someone has no subject, they are not a person. They are an object. They reduce themselves to mere things. The sense of internal subject is what elevates a human being to a person. Now of course this is an unfair generalization. My coworker, who seemed somewhat irritated by my analysis, made it quite clear that women don't go to parties or clubs to get hit on by guys, and that women really do maintain the subject within. While that all may be true, it doesn't matter; reality doesn't matter when you're dealing with abstract concepts that inform one's subconscious. I cannot be attracted to these women. I am programmed against it. Now this begs to be asked: if I only fall for women of a strong subject, does that mean I, myself, internally wish to be objectified? If I wanted to control the subject role, I would of course be perfectly okay with object women, but I'm not. I need subject women to keep me happy. So it would seem that I am an object man; that I must be the recipient of an act rather than the performer of an act. Perhaps this is why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of "picking up chicks." By picking them up, I am performing a verb on them, and thus making them objects. Since they now become willing objects, having established they're okay with me picking them up and thus sacrificing their subject within, I am no longer attracted to them. What if we extend this subject / object relationship further to sex? Wouldn't the man in pretty much all cases be the subject in a sex act, and the woman the object? After all (from the skewed perspective of someone who's never had it), all elements of sex are directed towards the woman. The man penetrates the woman, the seed gets fired into the woman. The man has to work to pleasure the woman. It's all towards the woman. Hence, in sex, man is the subject and woman is the object. There was a woman I once knew who refused to be objectified in all daily situations. I found her irresistible. And yet I was never sexually attracted to her because I couldn't imagine a way in which we could have sex while maintaining her sense of subject. In all of my attempted fantasies, when she would give in to me, her fantasy character would cease to be consistent with who she really was in real life and would turn into not-her - someone synthetic and contrived, unfamiliar and unlikeable. The fantasy would be lost. Perhaps this is why I find Smilla of Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow" to be the hottest character in all of fiction. She's a strong independent woman who actively acts with and against the men surrounding her in the book. In contrast to other "empowered" women in fiction and film whose empowerment and subject sense only last until they're finally united with the man at the end, after which they willingly succumb to the object role, Smilla never allows men to objectify her. Even in the one raunchy sex scene in the book, she screws the man with her own clit. Now that's a feminist. In any case, I got the sense my coworker was unhappy with my assessment of the situation. Initially I was really defensive of myself and tried to get her to see it from my point of view, but after some reflection, I realized her irritation is completely legitimate. As much as I try defending my point of view by claiming that it's only my subconscious as informed by preconceived notions, grammatical systems, and blaming a warped past that sees women as evil temptresses, it doesn't matter. My subconscious is still me. I'm still the one unfairly passing judgement on complete strangers I really know nothing about. Maybe my first coworker was right: maybe I don't respect women for who they are. But more importantly, this brings up another issue: if I need to be objectified in my relationships, and I only fall for strong subject women, does that mean I'm gay for lesbians? (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
10:51 pm	Romanticism of the Paternal Generations I think as time goes on I understand my dad more and more, and I think that's because as I get older, I become more and more like him. Or at least more and more what I perceive to be like him. When I was younger, and even now as I'm still young, my paternal lineage has been somewhat of an enigma to me. I've always been the momma's boy; Scott has always been the father's son. I never truly understood what motivates my dad's actions, or how he thinks. Between my parents, he was always the quieter one who preferred the background and seemed to enjoy remaining inconspicuous while my mom was always at the forefront of action and conversation. And strangely, I find that reflective of their respective families as well. Even though my dad's family is made up of people who never seem to stop talking, I feel like my mom's family more frequently offers opinions and internal convictions, whereas my dad's family just likes to have a good time and shoot the breeze. I remember when my dad's dad was dying, I realized that I really knew nothing about him. As the youngest child, I felt gypped out of knowing my grandparents. All of my siblings had more time and more opportunities to bond with them, discover them, and prove to them their worth as heirs to the Hayman Name. But when my dad's mom died, I was a measly eighth grader, and when my dad's dad died, I hadn't even finished high school, whereas Sarah I believe was already teaching, and Scott had a degree from grandpa's beloved Alma Mater. When grandpa left life, I felt like a failure, because I felt like the only Hayman grandchild not to have succeeded at something while he was living. Anyway, because I didn't know him, I decided to have my first and last real talk with him while we shared the same universe. I went over to the San Francisco house with so many questions about his life and motivations. He was bed-ridden and could barely communicate comfortably, but I tried my best to find him out. I came away with almost nothing. The only thing I found out is that his biggest regret was that he didn't travel more. And for someone who had seen the world, that was saying something. At his memorial service, it was even more displeasing. They talked about how he was a marine, an entrepreneur, and a Cal fan. As if human existence could be so reduced. Even his headstone in the beautiful Sacramento Valley Veterans' Cemetery says "Semper Fi, Go Bears." But I felt like there had to be more to this Grandchild of the Gold Rush, this man who spawned a great American family. I was discontent. But perhaps my discontent was merely a reflection of my overblown romantic sense of the paternal generations. So now as my own dad reaches 60, I grow afraid of not discovering him, as I failed to with his dad. Who is this man who sits and eats his chocolate fudge silently that is responsible for creating half of the puzzle that is me and is all my siblings? And yet, as I go camping with my (inept) friends, trying to care for them and keep them safe and comfortable while barely saying a word beyond subtle complaining, I remind myself of how my dad took care of me when I too was inept (and younger) and we would go camping. And as I sit there dreaming of peaceful solitude, dreaming of hiking high up on a Sierra ridge or across the great Western Deserts, I see the pictures in his classroom and on our wall of him in a cowboy hat with nothing but the jagged California peaks and great blue skies behind him. And now as I'm typing on a computer I don't know how to use, watching my friends whip out their new flashy technology and me experiencing no interest in it, having no sense of the modern fashion nor do I care, I realize that I, too, will become that man in the pictures. So, while I might not have that same futile talk with my dad as I did with his dad to find out who he is and how he works, I guess I won't need to. All I have to do is look at myself. No words need be exchanged. That's the beauty of the paternal connection. And so when my grandchildren try to talk to that strange man they call their grandfather while he's on his deathbed, and he tells them nothing worth while or substantial, I won't worry. They'll figure it out someday. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
1:53 am	The Donner Party Around 160 years ago, a group of settlers got stranded in the snowy mountains for months. Half of them died and the other half ate their corpses. In their memory, we named the location of their tragedy after them. Now, on recreational weekend trips, we drive there in a matter of hours to ski and have fun. They probably would've never seen that coming. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
7:21 pm	The Dog Leash - Freedom Paradox A couple of days ago, I decided to walk my dogs, so I got out the leashes, and sure enough, the dogs immediately sprang up from their deep sleep, ran over to me and proceeded to go mad. Any dog owner knows that dogs get excited for nothing more than walks. If there is any indication that a walk might occur sometime in the immediate future, they are certain to be running around, barking, wagging, and carrying on like they just won the dog-lottery. Once the dog owner touches a leash, it's all over. The leash is the final indicator that a walk is to follow. Nothing excites a dog more than a leash. But why do dogs like walks? My guess is, to them, a walk is the pinnacle of their allowed freedom outside of the home. Dogs are restricted to their houses or their backyards and very rarely get to explore the neighborhood. A walk is the only time they can extend their boundaries, smell smells they've never smelled, meet dogs they've never met, etc. To a dog, being on a walk is being free. It's interesting then that a leash, possibly the most restrictive device a dog ever encounters, is what the dog associates the most strongly with walking/freedom. It makes sense though: the dog never walks without the leash. Hence, the leash, being a requisite, makes it possible for the dog to be free. Or rather, unparalleled restriction is what gives the dog liberty. At least to the dog, which has no concept of walks without leashes. Thus, through conditioning, we have successfully fooled the dog into associating the item that keeps it the most captive with the freedom which gives it the most joy. The dog loves the leash because, to the dog, the leash sets it free. In fact, the leash is probably the dog's most beloved object. And yet, the leash more than anything, is the dog's enemy in its quest for freedom, for a dog is never controlled as much as it is when leashed. This is a frightening reality of psychology we can perhaps apply to ourselves and society. What in our lives do we love by association that actually keeps us down? What kind of Stockholm Syndrome is inherent in our system? And furthermore, how can evil madmen use this to their advantage to control us? (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
8:45 pm	A couple things people shouldn't do on the road On my drive back to LA, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I noticed it first on CA-99 between Visalia and Grapevine over the summer, and thought, "Wow, it's a good thing drivers on I-5 aren't this stupid." Apparently these road habits are contagious, for much to my dismay, this strange phenomenon occurred today on my beloved West Side Freeway. What happens is this: trucks drive about 55 miles per hour in the right lane (as expected, this is normal). As usual, people move to the left lane to pass them. But there's a problem: EVERYONE moves to the left lane to pass them, and they want to stay there. At a high traffic time, this does not work. The left lane, intended for passing, becomes gridlocked and actually starts moving marginally slower than the right lane, which only has trucks. Impatient drivers then get frustrated and move to the right lane to pass people on the right. However, they encounter trucks and move back into the left lane a mere two or three cars ahead of where they started, only inconveniencing and delaying the people behind them, forcing them to brake, setting off a chain reaction of worse traffic problems behind them, for little personal gain. And then, as if fate is pissing in their faces, congestion in the left lane makes them drop back to where they were relative to the truck they wanted to pass in the first place. But I can't blame them when it's everyone's fault for camping out in the passing lane. Come on, fellow drivers. We're a team. It's not you against me. It's us against time. We're all just trying to get to our destination. Let's work together. Be team players. You're not going to get there any faster by being a dick. Please, for your sake and mine, don't: 1. Brake going downhill 2. Pass in the right lane 3. Drive under the speed limit in the left lane 4. Pass in the left lane at a relative speed of less than 3 mph 5. Chill in the left lane after passing just because you can 6. Brake going downhill 7. Slow down when you see a police car 8. Slow down when you see hazard lights 9. Slow down when you see a car on the side of the road 10. Slow down when you see anything on the side of the road 11. Break going downhill 12. Pass on the right in an empty merging lane because you don't want to wait the four car lengths 13. Tailgate drivers who really can't go any faster 14. Speed up to prevent someone merging in front of you You don't want to play on the team? Take the damn frontage road. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
2:00 am	Greatest and Worst achievements in CA Civil Engineering history Greatest achievement in California Civil Engineering history: The overpass at the intersection of CA-152 and CA-156 Why it is excellent: It allows motorists to continue driving rather than forcing them to stop for half an hour at a stop sign Biggest failure in California Civil Engineering history: The interchange between I-5 Northbound and CA-152 Westbound Why it fails at life: The offramp from I-5 parts from the onramp from CA-152 before the onramp actually joins with the freeway. Not only do you have to cross the onramp to get to the offramp, but you also have to cross the empty space between the freeway and the ramp. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 25th, 2009
12:28 am	Two Good Books I took a Post-WWII Central and Eastern European Literature and Culture class last quarter. We read two books that I especially liked. 1. "The Joke" by Milan Kundera Taking place in 1960's Communist Czechoslovakia, the novel follows a young man and his attempt to extract revenge on the man who, fifteen years previous, got him expelled from both the Communist Party and the university for a joking postcard he sent to a girlfriend, which subsequently ruined his life and future and corrupted his internal ethics and beliefs. The novel is narrated by four different characters involved somehow in the act of revenge. It's a great book because the narration contains captivating psychological insight into our own world, actions and consequences, and how we operate. The main character is forced to return to the city of his childhood during his quest, and is thus forced to confront the people and memories he had left. Most of the novel is written in retrospect, revolving around who he was and who he had become, and how he got there. The joke on the postcard was only one of the many jokes referred to by the title of the book, the greatest one being the practical joke that History plays on all of us, making us the victims of its senseless and often completely incomprehensible jest. 2. "Ashes and Diamonds" by Jerzy Andrzejewski Taking place in Anytown, Poland the day after WWII ends, the novel follows the lives of socialists, fascists, bourgeoisie, opportunists, and partisans as they all collect in the town hotel to discuss and fight for the rebuilding of their ravaged country. More specifically, the story follows a partisan assassin who is called upon to assassinate a Communist Party official. The brilliance of the novel lies not with the story, but rather how the book was written. Since it was written in Stalinist Poland, any portrayal of non-communists being anything other than savage baby-eating monkeys would've landed the author in a prison camp. The communists in this book are portrayed as the good guys and everyone else is portrayed as bad guys. However, and I don't know if this was intentional by the author, the "good-guy" communists are one-dimensional characters who are boring to read about, whereas the "bad-guys" are all multi-dimensional humans one can relate to and sympathize with. Hence, the presentation of the protagonists as the communists and the antagonists as the others seems forced and contrived. On the surface, the book is a pro-Communist political thriller where good triumphs over evil, however under the surface, as indicated by the relative depth of the characters, it is a novel with a non-partial lean where perhaps good doesn't triumph over evil, but rather good must acquiesce to inevitability. Read both of them. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
12:29 am	The Ocean I find it interesting that the ocean is associated with freedom, and yet it's probably the most restrictive feature on our planet. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
2:40 am	Postponing the Future and nonsense I told a friend today that I wasn't graduating this quarter, but rather taking an incomplete and finishing up next quarter. They said, "Way to put your future on hold like me!" What does that really mean? Now, I know what she meant. But really, it's not like the future is any further away. Five years from now will be 2014 regardless of when I graduate, and when it gets here, it'll be the present regardless of what type of present it is. There is no future. There is only present. Future is some abstraction we invent to rationalize time. You can't hug a future. But you can hug your friends and family, just like you can hike in the mountains, eat a pizza, and feel lonely. They're all a part of your present. Future is merely the arbitrary and often misguided prediction of what one's present might be like someday. This is what bothers me about our society. Everyone is constantly concerned with their futures. Kids are encouraged to do well in school so they can get into a good college. People go to a good college so they can get good careers. People get good careers so they can get good retirement. Either that or so their kids will grow up comfortable and wealthy so they too can get good grades, a good degree, and a good career for a good retirement, so they too can have time to arrange their estates for their deaths. Do we really want to live the first 60 years of our lives for the last 20 we might not even have? Or is the process of investing in our futures itself the prize of our lives? It's kind of how "making a living" and "making money" are synonymous. Life = Money. I suppose without money, it would be difficult to lead a good life, but on the flip side, how many people do we know make a good living but are depressed and seeking therapy? Just look at the typical Suburbia. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
3:03 am	Mountains I don't really understand mountains. When I think of the Sierra Nevada, I think of a completely different world than what surrounds it (i.e. Fresno and Vegas). It's the land of rock, bears, volatile weather, and trees taller than the imagination. The mountains can kill you. And yet, just a few miles away and a few thousand feet below to the west is CA-99, farming, meth labs, and country music. The only thing that will kill you is home foreclosure. And just a few thousand feet below to the east is US-395, and a whole lot of arid nothing. And yet between these two, flat, hot regions where nothing grows higher than the almond trees, and the animal size maxes out at human, there lies this different, inhospitable world of lush vegetation (and yet barren granite), of bears (and yet alpine bees), of torrential rivers, glacial lakes, and the great sequoias. Where does it all come from? In my recent trip to Kings Canyon, I realized the Sierra Nevada is not as large as I once thought when I was younger. Back when I was a boy scout, it was a giant and endless universe with infinite depths. Now, I feel as if I can sit on it and simultaneously touch both the Central Valley and the Great Basin. It's weird to me that I can be killed by a blizzard under a giant sequoia with a bear eating my food, and simultaneously a mere 40 miles away in the valley some farm worker could be cursing rush hour traffic and turning up the air conditioning in his car. 40 miles is the distance between San Jose and San Francisco. You can drive it in an hour. The same can be said about the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains here down south. They pop out of the face of desert and provide you with an ecology, temperament, and people far different than anything surrounding it. Mountains are random. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
3:32 pm	I have no idea what I'm doing. It's that time of year again when I wonder to myself: what am I doing? This is really the first year of my life where I have no idea what I'm doing. Before, I always had dreams of becoming a famous self-sufficient concert composer out of college, but that's merely a pipe dream. Then I decided maybe I wanted to go into film music, but my small exposure to modern film composition, i.e. the studio music factory, left kind of a sour taste in my mouth. So maybe teaching? But then the teachers I know have been overwhelmed by the vast educational bureaucracy that jades them and chases them away. I was always in a hurry to succeed. It was once my goal to have a doctorate degree by the age of 28, married, making lots of money, etc. But why am I in a hurry? Who was I racing against? My own biological clock? And what is success anyway? Lots of money? Happiness? A wife that doesn't want to kill you in your sleep? There is always grad school, but time is running out to apply and I'm only lukewarm on the idea. On one hand, it would occupy me and keep me around valuable resources longer, but on the other it's expensive, and without a career motive, it's directionless. I can improve my craft on my own. I don't need to pay thousands upon thousands to do it. And since the musical academia already left a sour taste in my mouth, would it really be good for me to be exposed to it for two more years? The possibility of grad school will always be there anyway. And then maybe I was thinking about using my slowly developing Polish skills and going abroad to Poland for a year to teach English. However, while that sounds fun, I'd be afraid of getting homesick and alienating myself from my family, friends, and homeland here. And do I really want to teach English? Or is that, like grad school, just another way to keep me busy as my years of youth and wasted virility come to an end? And then maybe I should just suck it up and go into film music. Maybe I should brave this hierarchical world of egoists and new-age artistes who wear jeans and dress shoes and won't hesitate to fellate Hanz Zimmer. This world of endless loops and cues, synths, macs, protools, compressors, and all these frightening elements of studio music production, without which I'll forever drown in the world of 21st century music. Maybe I should suck it up and be a part of it. Yet, the idea of the Hollywood World has always frightened me a little. Maybe it's my innate conservative values, but to me its this arcane world of self-defined morality and hedonistic decadence, facades, and deceptions in which small-town city folk like me will never feel comfortable at home. But can I really blame Hollywood for their hedonism? I, myself, am not quite sure what else there is to trust but the pleasure of one's own senses. Or maybe I should just get a low-key unskilled job, like a waiter. One where I don't have to think about work when I'm not at work. Where I'll work my hours and leave both in body and mind, allowing me to relax at home and do what makes me happy: write my little compositions for the drawer, my little works of literature that never get finished. Then after a while, I'll discover or rediscover a dream and pursue a career. I'm just afraid that, if I did this, my little compositions and novellas would turn into watching TV and drinking beer, and soon I'll discover myself to be forty, fat, and lonely. Or maybe I'll take a year off and relax. Blow my savings on travel. Spend a year doing whatever the hell I feel like. Because of course being unemployed and homeless is a great way to pick up chicks. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
1:48 am	One of these days I'm gonna snap... I see it now... ...I'll be sitting in the warm comfort of my apartment trying to stream a South Park episode after a long day of work, when suddenly one minute through the episode... Buffering 20% ...22% ...playing... Then it will play for precisely two seconds. Buffering 25% ...37%... And again for two seconds. Buffering 17%... 17%... 17%... Connection Lost. Check Connection. And that will be it. My computer will be in tiny little pieces scattered below the dent in the wall where it impacted. The router will be in the street three stories below. The malfunctioning lever in the dishwasher that was supposed to get fixed will soon find itself stabbed into the electrical outlet that doesn't work. This is when I take the baseball bat out of the trunk of my car and destroy everything on campus that pisses me off. Every piece of electronics that inexplicably doesn't work. Every piece of machinery that breaks down more often than it should. Goodbye Delta Terrace elevators. Goodbye Rieber washing machines. Goodbye Schoenberg vending machines. The door of Covel by the bike racks? Gone. The traffic light on Gayley crossing into De Neve? Gone. That one elliptical machine at Wooden that is always Out of Order? Destroyed. The garbage truck that rolls by every morning at 8:00am? You better believe it. And then after I'm done with that, I'll stand at the bottom of the ramp from Sunset Blvd to northbound Sepulveda and smash the windshield of every car that stops in front of the sign that says "Do Not Stop." It will be glorious. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
12:21 pm	The Girl from Hanover As many of you might know, I have two facebook profiles: one for high school and one for present-day. I created the high school one purely for the purpose of being able to date myself on facebook. Lame, I know. But it's more than that: it's my way of expressing the complicated relationship between who I am now and who I was in high school. My high school self and current self have different interests, politics, and pictures, and constantly I find my current self going back to my high school self to find out who I really am (or some bull crap like that). Anyway, as it isn't my real profile, I rarely log in to my high school facebook. That is, until yesterday when I immediately realized a problem. For the first time in over a year, I logged in to my high school profile and found something like 25 friend requests and 15 unread messages dating back from over a year. Suddenly it hit me: people searching for my profile could stumble upon this one and think it's the real me. Important friends I've never accepted and messages to which I've never responded lay there waiting, I'm sure in agonizing anticipation, for my response. There is one such message that especially caught my interest: from: Gian Giezendanner subject: is it you? hy jeff remember me? we were in the same train to villnus, the two swiss guys and the german girl? how are you? How is your trip going on? hope it was the right decision to get off the train there you did :) goodbye Sent August 6, 2008. First of all, the obvious: he wants to make sure I'm okay (a year ago) and I never got back to him (a year ago). For all he knows, I could be dead, although I'm sure he stopped losing sleep over it by now. Second of all, and more importantly, he references the German Girl. This is the Girl from Hanover I referred to in an earlier entry of mine. To make the short story shorter, I met her on the train with the two Swiss guys referred to above in the facebook message. I connected with her on an unspoken level (or so I thought), but then I got off the train in Kazlu Ruta, and she continued on to Vilnius. The following day I went to Vilnius to look for her. I went all over Old Town: the main street, the main square, and the areas with hostels with a faint hope of running into her. I don't know why it was so important to me; we barely talked on the train. We just exchanged glances and smiled. I don't even remember her being amazingly attractive. But there seemed to be a mutual understanding of some deep personal nature, and this deep personal understanding of one another was something I craved. Regardless, the day went by, and she was gone forever. I had no name, no age, no school. I had nothing. I only knew she was from Hanover and that she was continuing north. She only knew I was from San Francisco and continuing south. And to this day, that's all I've ever known about her. In fact, I'm not even certain she was from Hanover anymore. Time has filled my head with doubt - maybe the personal connection was an illusion. Maybe I just made up the fact she was from Hanover to fill her identity with something tangible. Maybe she didn't exist at all. But that's not important anymore. She stayed with me as a symbol. A symbol of the Romantic. A symbol of the Fantastic. She rekindled my belief in Ethereal Love. The Mystic and Metaphysical. The Divine Erotic. We live in a world where all too much is placed at surface value. We take things as we see and feel them, and as we get older, we get jaded with the material reality and get depressed as we come to discover nothing in life as being as spectacular and extraordinary as we had once thought in our dreamy youth. But I have the Girl from Hanover: the symbol onto which I can cling and thus cling onto the romantic and metaphysical notions that keep me grounded outside of reality. Ultimately the fact I know nothing about her allows me to make her into whatever I want her to be to me. But now, with this facebook message (which should have been answered 14 months ago), I suddenly have a glimmer of hope to connect with this symbolic myth from my past. What does Gian Giezendanner know? If he knew my name, does he know hers? Is he facebook friends with her? What happened to her? What are her interests and her desires? Where has she been and where is she going? I have the rare and elusive opportunity to turn an intangible fantasy into a name and a face. You can't communicate with a fantasy. You can't touch a fantasy. Sure, nothing will come of it. Even if I do find her on teh intrawebz, that will be the end of the story. I have my life, she has hers. There are real women on my mind now: women I can talk to and touch and hug, and maybe one day kiss. She will always only be the Fantastic Other. But regardless, the curiosity is killing me. Who is this that unknowingly stole my heart and mind from the depths of solitude? Do I even want to know? (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
10:07 pm	The Adventures of Adam and Vaclav I was bored today, so I had an idea: I would write lame jokes based on the stereotypes of Central and Eastern Europeans and post them on Livejournal. This gradually evolved into an idea for crappy televised shorts aimed at teaching lessons on Central and Eastern European history through the lame adventures of Adam and Vaclav. So without another moment's wait... I present to you the first three installments of "The Adventures of Adam and Vaclav: the educational series" Written and produced by (and for) The S.H.C.I (Society of the Historically and Culturally Inept). Viewer discretion advised: this might actually make you more bored than you were before you started reading it. ( Lesson 1: The Beginnings of Solidarity: Adam and Vaclav go to the bar ) ( Lesson 2: 19th Century Romanticism: Adam and Vaclav go golfing ) ( Lesson 3: After The Second World War: Adam and Vaclav go to the pool ) I told you these were lame. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
2:33 am	Wealth and Happiness We all know money can't buy happiness. Why does it seem like our entire existence is focused on acquiring it? Twelve years of school and college: to enrich ourselves? Right... We all know college is to get us the "good" jobs, ie: the jobs that make a lot of money. But tell me: when your wife is cheating on you, your children loathe you, and you've alienated all your friends in your quest for capital, will your yacht really save you from yourself as you stand on the ledge of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking outward at the sun setting behind the mighty blue sea indifferent to your internal suffering? I don't know what I'm doing next year, but honestly I don't really care as long as I'm happy. There's no point in making an investment in a future of unhappiness, and it's truly a testament to our ills as a society that so many of us are willing to do so. Then again, I'm afraid with that mentality that I'll be poor, miserable, and homeless by the age of thirty. Maybe it's a worthy investment to make. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
2:49 am	Pedophilia, Incest, and Film-making I was wondering the other day... Do fathers ever get strangely attracted to their daughters because they remind them of how their wives used to look back when they fell in love and made babies? And then suddenly, I was inspired to make a film (if I actually made films). It would be about a father who has lost the enthusiasm for life and vivacity he once had. He has an estranged wife and daughter who lead independent existences. Slowly, as his daughter becomes an adult, he begins to notice the innate sensual qualities of the maturing teenage woman, and then also notices the similarities between his daughter and how his wife once was when she was young. He would grow infatuated with his daughter as a symbol of passion and means of bringing himself back to his own youth, when he had a purpose, dreams, and could fall in love. Then, by falling in love with his daughter as the symbol of his wife from the past, he would then have a rebirth of affection for his wife, and the two would live happily ever after. Just kidding. Because we're all secretly perverted and addicted to tragedy, the movie would be a much better hit if he develops some sort of sexual relationship with his daughter, and then gets either killed by his wife or sent to prison at the end. Now, I understand this sounds almost exactly like American Beauty (we all know the daughter's cheerleader friend is really a symbol of the daughter, or at least feminine youthful sensuality in any case), so we need to change it around a bit. Perhaps we could turn this into a psychological thriller two-fold. On one hand, it explores the father's deep, dark descent into the perverse world of incest and pedophilia. On the other hand, the daughter's psychological element could also be developed. Perhaps she was given a Christian upbringing, and then as she got older she began to lose faith. As a result, her life would feel empty and vapid. Then, as a result of a desire to reconnect herself with something metaphysical and greater than herself, she starts to see her father as not only her father, but her creator, and by extension God. Then, in order to realize her own sense of worth, she would start to have delusions of herself as a Mary figure, and would begin to believe her role in life is to bring about a son through conception with her creator/father. Thus, she would willingly enter into a “divine” sexual relationship with the man she worships as her powerful creator, who himself is set on worshipping the pinnacle of feminine sexuality through his daughter. Maybe to make this even more dysfunctional, she could find out she's pregnant after he's been convicted of child rape and incest. And hell! Why not just make it a two-hour pseudo-porno with only one sex scene at the end. The trick is to make it a giant sensual crescendo from the relatively flaccid and depressed beginning to the end where all of our own deep, dark perverse desires are thrown out onto the screen in the greatest sex scene to happen since The Watchmen. Now here's the trick as a film maker: in spite of the evident psychoses in the characters, it has to be a genuine love story. This is a huge challenge because no morally conservative American is going to condone a love story about incest and pedophilia. Yet I would want it to be beautiful and convincing. I want the father to be a tragic and inspirational hero, not a morally bankrupt molester. The father is a good man, lost in a world of unjust and arcane moral standards. Why shouldn't he be able to have sex with his daughter? Why shouldn't he be able to have sex with an underaged woman? I mean, clearly she loves him back in that way... who defined incest as incest and pedophilia as pedophilia anyway, and why are they bad? Now, of course I'm not seriously asking these questions. But that's the thing! I would want the movie done in such a way that audience members, leaving the theater, are asking themselves these very questions while feeling sympathy for the father and indignation for his fate, and only when they're a hundred yards from the parking lot do they slam on their breaks and yell, “What the fuck did I just watch?! Holy God!” Only then would I know that I have truly made it as an artist. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
12:28 am	Incomplete Failures After looking through all my unfinished pieces, half-written livejournal entries stashed away in the depths of my computer, first pages to novels, language books never opened past Chapter 2, friendships that could've been, women I've wanted and never gave myself a chance to have, places I've almost visited... I've determined the key to greatness is finishing what you start. Just because you can swim doesn't mean you stay above the water. Only those that do swim make it out of the lake. Ability is only worth something when applied. Money only has value when spent. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
12:33 pm	Things I should do daily this quarter 1. Go to the gym, 1.5 hours 2. Practice piano, 1 hour 3. Practice guitar, 0.5 hours 4. Practice Polish, 1 hour 5. Review Lithuanian/French/German, 1 hour 6. Write music, 2 hours 7. Read for school, 2 hours 8. Read for pleasure, 1 hour 9. Write prose, 1 hour 10. Clean, 0.5 hours That totals 11.5 hours. If I sleep 8 hours per day, that makes 19.5 hours. If I work 4 hours a day, that's 23.5 hours. I average about 1.5 hours of class per day (light load, I know). So that totals 25 hours per day. Damn. Things I probably will do daily this quarter: 1. ... (5 Comments |Comment on this)