brief, random thought.

mtv show : room raiders? i think? some lame shit. i never watch tv, so it's all new and interesting to me. and ripe for analysis.

my analysis of this show in brief question format before bed. isn't it kind of creepy that this show (on the supposedly counterculturish mtv) promotes judging people's potential status as 'date' in terms of their possessions? their accoutrements? all the shit that they have, and the point is that they have no idea who the person is, except through the material products which they have acquired. fuck talking and getting to know actual people, since we're all just defined by commodities, why not just do the obvious thing and cut out the middleman? (woman?)

fuck.

what an ironic metaphor. what an ironically self-referentially, ironically greedy-fuck marketing spawn, ironically product-placement-ridden, ironically-laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank metaphor.

the dark side of postmodernism. well fuck, if meaning don't exist, why we'all be pretendin' ta huv it!? les' jus show em titties and 'splosions!

on holidays.

oh, these past four days have been spectacular.

spectacularly boring, in some cases, but in any case i haven't been working, and thus they have been spectacular.

so happy to be back in london, though. as much as i love my parents, i don't particularly enjoy living with them. plus, i don't know anybody to buy herb from back home anymore. it's really sad. i ended up smoking the dirtiest, shittiest weed... sick. and shameful.

but i do love being in the middle of nowhere for a while. sometimes the city is just too much. i miss having an untainted outdoors, someplace where i can go where there are no people, no power, no product placement... our cottage is a haven from the capitalist mode. to some extent. we do have three computers, a satellite dish, and a dishwasher, to be fair. (and two stoves and fridges) we're not exactly roughing it. but in a way we are. i guess?

i don't like christmas anymore. all that i need really is a few days off and some time with my family. i don't really care about presents much. (not to mention bottles and bottles of good wine and all the groceries i can buy. i love when my parents buy groceries and make me cook. cornbread chorizo stuffing, roasted garlic mashed with about 20 bucks' worth of reggiano, cauliflower with stilton sauce... dah!) christmas day was probably the most relaxed i've had in months. drank a bottle of cabernet, ate way too much turkey, and proceeded to pass out on the couch for about two hours.

and now i'm back at work, and the shock is intense, but i can handle it. i've got a book to read (I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe), i've got the vast time-wasting resources of the internet, and above all i don't have any studying that i should be doing.

and another (vastly-inappropriate) booty call for tonight seems to be in the cards.

all is well.

now all i need is to find a drug dealer that's still around here.

wait. : an apathetic manifesto

here on this chain, it's cold, and lonely.

but it's the only place that there is.

i think that maybe language makes us believe. i think that to believe that we are anything more than bags of meat, with genetically and hormonally-influenced drives and the curse of self-consciousness ... is just a construct of language, and history. we create this mythology of ourselves as transcendent, and make ourselves think that there's something more than just this stupid eat-sleep-fuck-die orgy . when all evidence points to the contrary. gods, money, love, power, even reality, all these things to which people devote their lives, all are just constructs of our cursed linguistic capacities.

i think that maybe language keeps us from comprehending. i think that language generates this whole confusion. language got us to where our ability to think superseded our ability to be, and there was the problem. the vocative absolute becomes a distant memory. we no longer generate our own meanings, but rather, language generates them for us.

i think that maybe language is necessary. i think that i don't want to give it up, despite the fact that it is the means of my subjectivity. i don't want to give up what language brings, i don't want to give up progress and comfort, and if i am just a bag of meat, i damn well want to be a comfortable bag of meat. my unconscious won't give language up, says Lacan, so it's not really up to me. neither will yours. so, we've got to learn to deal with it.

but why deal with it through its own construct? here i am referring to god and the classical beliefs, but to science and the contemporary ones as well. for we are all subject to language in our thought, and the individual remains the précis of history. not even the determinist gods of scientific progress and their ideological cohorts.

subscribing to these foolish constructs means that you lie to yourself, each, each and every day.

but refutation of the constructs brings with it a restoration of meaning. un état d'être-pour-soi. for the unbearableness of the suspension of linguistically-constructed belief, is an unbearable lightness. live with the lightness. participate in language, but lose belief in it. play, dabble, socialize, but never lose sight of its claws.

whatever meaning there really is in our stint on this mortal coil, cannot be defined, named, spoken, or even properly conceptualized, for language precludes meaning. maybe there is none. maybe there is some. but we won't know until we can look back on the whole thing, can we? and we definitely won't figure it out by talking about it. so participate in life as in language, speak not of your gods for to do so would turn them into idols. et puis, on verra.......

well now that was out-there.

correction.

no, it's about as lame as me thinking that ascii shit would show up right.

or that i wasn't way too high to figure out how to make it show up right.

thought.

how lame is it that i go view my blog and read the entire post that i just wrote right after i post it? is that really lame, or does everyone do that?

_ _
( (____) )
[ x x ]
\ /
(o o )
(|)

when i say it out loud, it sounds like it was about as lame as me doing that.

baked musings whilst watching muted televangelists and listening to beulah.

there is no place for a scene within a montage about healing, and god, and suchlike, in which there is depicted a hand, writing a cheque. i picture the real jesus driving you out of the temple with a whip. for fuck's sakes.

isn't it kind of weird how churches talk about all these wonderful programs in which backward young people are given jobs and basically assimilated into the capitalist mode of production. it's like ... god wants you to be our wage-slave! ah, oui, althusser ... l'église ...

"free family restoration." that is the title of a pamphlet this guy offers. that creeps me out on such a deep, reptilian level. okay. get it, friend, families are neurotic. so is yours. families are the mechanism of our socialization, and thus they are the mechanism of our subjectivity. like they said in red dwarf. (yes, red dwarf. i'm citing red dwarf) families truly are the origin of all our neuroses. at the same time, they're a bastion of maybe something deeper than this endless chain. and they're basically a necessary socializing force, in the human experience as it is presently configured. but don't fucking reify it like that, thumper. you'd think televangelists, of all people, would understand how fucked families can be. i love the thought of tammy faye calling upon this fetishized ideal of "the family" as justification for every one of her trippy right-wing compatriots' collective pissings-upon-our-freedoms.

(was that not the most loaded, convoluted, and utterly nonsensical sentence? just there? i really like the phrase "nonsensical sentence.")

oh, and should i have read into the fact that a particularly interesting girl with whom i always have this weird feeling of sexual tension calls me up repeatedly last night? proceeds to find me at the bar and within minutes bring up the "hypothetical" possibility of getting naked and doing what people do, and potential implications thereof? (note: not at the bar just then, but at an unspecified 'hypothetical' time.) cos, in hindsight, it feels like it should have told me something. at the time, though... didn't work out. and didn't entirely seem like it sounds. in any case, i couldn't stick around to find out, so the point is moot. fuck, i hate my job. and the fact that my car was in the middle of fuacking nooooowhere derrrty south london!

i can't hear any of the dialogue on this festive tardery that is Vision TV near christmas time. the segment currently running on this 'newsy' seeming program, though, is entitled "ho, ho ... oh?" looks like a fine piece of investigative reporting... on... god knows what. how to do crafty hegemonically-approved things, and be a good little consumer? it's just ladies baking, and wrapping presents and such. and now there are healthy young teens engaging in some sporting activities! and now a gay man doing some unspecified video-related task on a macintosh!

and a stoned, pretentious little university student wrapped up in his own belletristic and self-referentially pomo little world!

errrrrrrd.

randomness.

george bush is time magazine's 2004 person of the year.

hurl!

what, was adolf hitler 'person of the year' in 1939?

"Sure, he killed all those Jews. But look at the German economy!"

last night at the bar i got a new nickname : "consolation sex."

i think that pretty much says it all. story of my life.

hey, a second-choice fuck is still a fuck.

on addiction, part two.

i think that the reason drug addiction is so frowned upon by the commodity-fetishist state is that it by its nature impinges upon the dominance of the commodity.

i mean, think of the paradigm of the heroin addict.

obviously, the political economic perspective would tell us that we should look at the significance of drug consumption in its economic context. the heroin addict, is by definition, not a wage-labourer. the demands of heroin addiction are antithetical to consistent, productive labour. (see here) thereby, drug addiction in its most exaggerated forms disrupts the moment of production and diverts the worker from his or her accepted role in the capitalist mode. hence the second violence, the combined apparatuses of repression and ideology, swings into motion against this socio-economic subversion. the drug consumer begins to consume drugs as a means of escape from the alienation of this empty postmodern society, and in doing so subverts its hegemonic mechanisms.

particularly interesting in this case study is to think of the consequences of addiction in terms of metaphor for the capitalist mode writ large. the heroin addict's body is the microcosm of the realm of capitalist production. the subversive seeks subversion; in doing so unwittingly self-identifies through commodity consumption (yes, heroin is a commodity); the commodity culminates the parasitic relationship by consuming the consumer. this is the paradox of the commodity fetish. this is the all-consuming glory of the empire of modern passivity, and our hegemonic ideologies shine ever more brightly upon its waxen face.

the case of the heroin addict is, as i said, an exaggeration of the commodity-fetishist model of capitalism. referring more directly to myself, (cos i just can't avoid that, now can i?) addiction to soft drugs is a more moderate reaction to that same alienation. surrounded by consumer goods sold with ideologies, having hegemonic meanings shoved down my throat with each passing minute, it's nice to engage in some even-handed capitalism. my drug dealer isn't selling me an ideology, he's selling me a bag of pot with a clearly defined use-value. its exchange-value may not be keyed directly to that use-value, and it might not be a direct reflection of the labour-time invested in its production. however, it is participation in a relatively egalitarian market. and there's no goddamn advertising. all it takes is some seeds, and the will to subvert the repressive state apparatus, and you too can become a player in the drug market. the invisible hand of competition keeps prices down, since suppliers are generally independent. no more corporate dope men - it's not hell's angels running this shit no more, with the cheapness of hydro ops and decriminalization on the horizon, most producers are small. and the producers get all the value of their surplus labour. my drug consumption is not 'supplemented by the complete idleness of a stratum of society,' to (mis)quote everyone's favourite socialist thinker. that, i say, is why drugs are illegal. smoking pot is illegal because that's money that could be spent on commodities. that's self-identification that could be accomplished through commodities. that's social networking and critical thinking and emotional well-being and peace and stability. that's not a 'buying mood.'

every time i think of buying some inane and empty fetishized commodity, i think of how much pot i could buy with the money. that sounds immediately pretty sketchy. but think about it further. minor drug addictions like mine (aka vices) are pretty much only problematic in that they usurp money that could otherwise be spent on things that we want and need. yet the things that we want and need are indivisible from the things that this simulacrum of a society tells us that we need. through the selling of consumerist ideology, our desires have been subsumed into the capitalist system as its essential means of support.

to what other causes could we possibly attribute the fact that some innocuous drugs are illegal, whilst other vastly more destructive ones are not? the ranks of illicit drug addicts are but a tiny fraction of the hordes of prescription drug addicts in the western world. while smoking a joint every night is a 'dependence,' blindly accepting the techodeterminist proposition that self-medication can solve all problems is not. just look at the armies of our generation high on speed, the creative youth crushed by anti-depressants or regimented by ritalin, the bored housewives on valium, the drunks in the bars ... it's inescapable. soma ... soooooma .... soo-oooo-maaaa ..... the drugs which don't cause problems for the moment of production are ok. self-medication and addiction are fine, so long as you get to the factory the next day. heroin might stop you from going, so it's a problem. pot might stop you from wanting to go without killing you.... so it's in many ways a bigger problem for our ruling interests.

sure, it's not an unproblematic thing. i could be spending the money on a lot more productive things. i could find my happiness in other ways. maybe i really am buying an ideology, i'm buying a hippy-pothead ideology. maybe i'm merely marginalizing my own status within the system, and i could effect much more efficient change if i wasn't a stoner fuck.

but maybe i wouldn't have asked a single one of the above questions if it weren't for the fact that i like to spark some trees from time to time.

ok, alot of times. to alot of other times.

addiction.

soooo,

i've got an exam in four hours.

i haven't studied, even really at all.

today, my day consisted of making myself a chicken vindaloo, eating it, reading the economist for an hour or so, getting baked, and driving to 7-11 for a slurpee.

sometimes, i think i'm too mellow.

i didn't get that baked. all is well. i should be in a relatively study-ish mood fairly soon. for now, though, i'm going to enjoy my slurpee.

note that it is far too cold to be having a slurpee. (too much italics)

note also how boring posts are when they're not about sex...

on things i said i wouldn't do.

it's funny how some people make you do things oddly.

today i did two things which do not gibe with my general agenda for life.

1. i wore a scarf, and a furry-collared jacket. i colour-coordinated spectacularly, and looked like a total metrosexual fuck.

2. i went to starbucks, and purchased a peppermint mocha. peppermint mocha!? what the fuck, commodity fetishism in hot-faggy-beverage form.

3. i purchased a drink for a girl with whom i have no foreseeable chance sleeping. i'm talking none. and i feel like, indirectly, this girl is responsible for the previous two.

ah, some things just never change.

see, it might seem like #3 there is kind of an asshole chauvinist thing. ok, it's not. seriously ... because i love feminist theory, queer theory, all of that. but female practice and the stuff spewed out by the intelligentsia are two vastly different things.

i used to be nice.... cos, i figured, logically, that's what would work. but being nice got me nowhere, and i stood by and watched as asshole guys picked up the girls i obsessed over. so, while some overly friendly nerd types just dealt with this in their mopey way (which i did, let me tell you i did too) .. i just decided to become an asshole guy. cos it's way more fun, and, well, it does the proverbial trick.

so, ok, i'll be nice when it's called for, and/or when i feel like it. but to the elided différance that is the female population as a whole, you showed me you didn't want me to be nice, so i changed.

word! but i still do things like that troublesome #3.

oh, well.

i remember i said this wasn't going to be all emo, and about girls, and so far way too much of this blog has been. if not emo, at least, about girls.

must... think... about... something else.

right now i'm thinking about castration, to be fucking honest. like ... i need to overcome my raging hormones somehow. christ! i think freud was right after all. (though he was an old fuck, and i'm a 19-year old boy. you'd think he'd have gotten over the banging-all-the-time thing? i hope that i will! fuck.)

next time i post, it will be about something different.

fuck.

c'est tout.

je n'ai rien de plus a dire que ça!

girls creep me out...

this slurpee that i'm drinking right now ... sucks. it tastes faintly of disinfectant, and i just want to slap around whoever was involved in the cleaning process for the slurpee machine, and whoever consequently screwed a poor university student out of a $1.75.

so, i went to the bar last night, and basically got swarmed by girls.

(?!???!?)

like, honestly, i will never understand this world. some nights, i go out, and it's basically just a festival of awkwardness. i really just can't talk. and people don't talk to me. that's just how it works.

and others ... it's like i have a damn fan club. it should be noted that i personally don't do much of anything differently. mostly, i just stand there, quiet as usual. i don't do any of the traditional predatory male shit. but when i get shamelessly hit on, i hit shamelessly back. like, i'm talking, SHAMELESS.

last night, it should be noted, that i wasn't particularly interested. i just wanted to have a couple beers and hang out with my friends. it was really just flirting for the sport of it. alot of the girls from my faculty were there. seemingly so interested by the fact that i'm an enormous baker, and hilariously smarter than they are. it should be noted, that i'm hopelessly judgmental about everyone in my year, and am an asshole to all these girls when they're not drunk. i still am an asshole when they're drunk, just more subtly, in ways they're too drunk to notice.

oh, university is weird. i never would have thought that talking in class and getting the weird shit that we learn would get girls to talk to me? (and/or hang off me. girls don't hang off nerds! it's not how it works) see, girls, i can smoke huge quantities of dope and still be smart without working hard. but you got the social skills, and i didn't. you win some, you lose some. sometimes i wish knowledge was sexually transmitted. it'd equalize things.

bars creep me out almost as much as girls who talk to me. it's just so damn predatory. why can't people just enjoy themselves at bars, and be more rational about who they sleep with. instead, it's, go to bar, get hammered, and essentially go out cup in hand begging for sex. i can't fucking do that, it's disturbing, and weird, and totally not enjoyable. knots of greased-up guys scanning the room beer in hand trying to figure out who they'll take home freak me out. although to be honest, i'm reminded of kristeva ... the freaking out is, i think, in reference to a perceived threat which comes not from without, but from within. the creepy greasers disturb me so much, probably half because i wish i was as confident as they were (but not as big of a tool), and half because they're really just doing in an exaggerated way what i'm doing much of the time i go out.

that being said, i had a blast last night. sarcastic and ironic flirting is the only kind that i can do, i think.

reminded of chris bachelder. "You can't be a little bit pregnant, or a little bit dead. Can you, friend, be a little bit ironic?"

once you give into the sarcastic cynicism trap, sincerity is but a distant memory.

i woke up this morning and there was toothpaste and a toothbrush in the shower...looks like someone was in a rush, ha. i think my roommate probably overslept and was late for work. i'd be shocked if he had been in any state to set an alarm before he passed out.

and i can't resist this disinfectant slurpee. uuughhh.

this guy just called me (i'm at work, i work for a certain japanese auto maker's customer service line ... hurl) ... he was advised earlier today that he would have to go talk to management at his dealership. apparently, the managers "ganged up on him" (his words) and now he is charged with criminal mischief under $5000. wtf !??! what did you do, you crazy old polish man?! i am so interested to find out what happens with his file.

ok, i've just wasted an hour of time in which i should be studying. onward, and upward.

on awkwardness.

people don't believe me when i tell them that i am awkward.

i might not seem like the average awkward type, i suppose. maybe i don't play dungeons and dragons, i've forgotten most of the star trek trivia i knew, and maybe i bathe with relative frequency. i even sleep with girls.

but, i am fundamentally, and essentially awkward.

it's what i do.

talking to people ... is work. some people, i get along with. and i can talk to them sans difficulté. but, the whole, social butterfly, drunken-everybody's-friend-at-the-bar thing that the university life seems to demand, it's just work. i can't handle it.

and the only way that i hook up with girls is if they grab me by the collar and drag me into bed. or just straight up ask.

i'm paralyzed by postmodern angst. i sat in my chair last night, literally unable to move. (so, okay, i was stupid high. but the point remains...) i'm like a fucking figure of speech. but in the end, aren't we all figures of speech? by the violence of our naming, we become nothing more than links in the endless chain, subsumed into the system of différance. language is all signified, and no signifier; nothing really has any meaning, so why try?

i guess in the end, i just have no confidence. christ, i don't even have confidence that i'm fully sane, or that i'm going to live through each passing day. (not that i'm depressed, au contraire c'est la mechanisme of my liberation) so how am i supposed to have enough confidence to assume that anything is actually worth saying?

i'm like the troglodyte in the immortal. there's a bird nesting on my chest, just cos i can't see the point of even moving sometimes.

though i did just write this.

belletrisme!

surprise....

You are a Deconstructionist! Everything is
relative, stretched along an unending chain of
signifiers. You cannot even read a take-out
menu without deconstructing and destabilizing
the meaning of the text. You are one of the
chosen few who understand the writing of
Jacques Derrida! You delight in making meaning,
and taking meaning, trashing meaning and
bashing meaning, slaying meaning and playing
meaning. And you also like green eggs and ham.
No one understands you or really likes being
around you, but you don't care; they may not
exist anyway.


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