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September 6th, 2004
04:11 pm - So, it appears doing Joseph at the Grove is not a career revitalizer after all…
I’d just like to say that the only thing worse than watching the Surreal Life on TV, is watching the surreal life on TV and knowing someone who’s on it. Very, very sad (luckily, I only knew said person for a short time and not at all that well or it would be REALLY sad)
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August 1st, 2004
12:56 pm
First, a brief intro, I realize I haven’t posted much on this journal, and to be honest, for reasons that I’ll get into in a later post, this journal’s time may be coming to an end very soon. But, this post is something that has been taking its tool on my life for the last 3 or 4 days and I can’t keep walking around in a daze so I needed to find an outlet.
I guess what it comes down to is that, I feel that I need to talk about this to get it out of my head and move on but since I don’t really want to talk TO anyone about it, I figured my best bet was to post it here. So, here it goes...
I used to have a friend named Drew. I first met Drew on what was called a BBS when I was about 14, basically a message board like those you find on the web these days, but at the time there was no web so individual people would host a BBS on their personal computer and people could dial in to that computer and post messages.
Anyway, years later I started working at a computer store and Drew was one of the people that worked there with me. I didn’t know he was the same guy until months after he’d started working there, but I’d grown to like him and that little connection from our past served to solidify our relationship.
After a couple of years, we became roommates. Now, this is hard to understand if you’ve never had a friend as a roommate, but there is probably no closer friendship simply because that person becomes your "go to" guy. Your car breaks down, you call him, your sick and need more medicine, you call him. Maybe it’s just the proximity (e.g. he’s coming home anyway so when you need help you call him) but one way or another you get very close.
We were roommates for a little over 2 years before he met his fiancé. That’s when things really went bad, you see, it was a pretty whirlwind romance and they, understandably, wanted to start their new life as soon as possible. One problem, the lease that he’d signed kept him in the apartment for another 2 months.
Here’s where I made my mistake, I told him that I would pay the rent, utilities, etc… for the last two months so he would have money to buy her a ring and that he could pay me back in a couple months. Their plan was to live with her parents for the next 6 months, pay me back, save their money, and then go get an apartment and start their new life together.
In addition to this, my car broke down and he (as sort of a thank you to me) agreed to let me use his van while it got repaired (he was going out of town for the weekend). As luck would have it, the van broke down on my first trip to work. I had it towed to the repair shop, and after talking it over with him agreed to repair it for about $365 with the understanding that we would just add that to the money he’d already owe me and he’d pay be back for everything at a later date.
Well, as is usually the case, fate does not always work out like we would hope. Living with her parents turned out to be too much for them and after a month, they got an apartment. He then called me and told me that "since he was barely living in our old apartment for the last two months and since I had broken his van (by driving it 2 miles) he didn’t think he owed me anything"
So, after a few threats to sue him (which I would almost surely win on the rent and utilities) we agreed to a total, significantly less than the $2000+ he owed me but significantly more than the $0 he was planning to pay me (I essentially let him off on the last months rent (since he was moving out over the course of the month) and the van because I had no proof of our agreement). We then agreed to a payment plan of $100 per month until he’d paid me back in full.
As you can imagine, this was pretty much the end of our friendship as far as I was concerned. He’s consistently acted like he thinks it’s "no big thing" but I can’t claim to know how he really feels. There have been various other problems over the last 8 months that have kept him from paying me (his car got broken into, he flattened two tires, etc...) but he’s always been apologetic so I let it slide. This month, I finally received the first payment of $100.
Now, through the last 8 months or so I’ve been working really, really hard to maintain my composure and be reasonable through out the whole affair despite the fact that I was still pretty livid. Honestly, at this point, I was just happy that it looked like it was finally going to be over and I could put this all behind me.
Then Thursday afternoon, I get this:
Well, Tom, I'm sorry to say but I'm shipping to the army stuff and money's going to be tight while I'm away.
If my wife is able to do so, she'll go ahead and do things but pay with the army can be a rough thing.
I leave tonight for some last-minute training and am set to go to Kuwait for 18 months. It sux cuz my ETS date was September 24th of this year (ETS = End of something or other) and so ... anyways, I hope you understand and can be cool about this. I can be reached at
xxxxx@us.army.mil
if you want to email me there to prove that I am actually set up with the army again.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Well, may I just say, $#%#$%
I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with THAT?
This is a guy who hasn’t gone to a PT test (a Physical test they give to reserves to make sure they are still fit to serve) in 2 years, he hasn’t had any contact with the military in the last 1.5 years. Then one day a registered letter shows up at the door, and you’re off to Kuwait.
Imagine that for a second, how you would deal with it if two weeks from now you were on a plane to the Middle East. These people are marching into a war zone completely unprepared, having not even gone through training for (in many cases) years and their being put right into the heart of the battle.
Understand this; Kuwait is a staging ground, which means that when someone in Iraq needs a munitions specialist or is low on troops, that person is transported in from Kuwait.
Yes, I realize that, of the roughly 135,000 troops in Iraq less than 1% of them have died but that doesn’t take into account a few things. One, how many soldiers have been maimed, lost limbs, been crippled, etc... I know the answer but I’m not going to tell you because, quite frankly, if you don’t already know you don’t want to. Two, the current rate of "death and injury" is based on a military force of experienced soldiers, these people going in now aren’t even weekend warriors they’re essentially civilians. Finally, I’ve never been in the service but I grew up in some very bad neighborhoods, places where a shooting a day wasn’t considered all that bad, and from that experience I can tell you...as far as bad things go, death itself pales in comparison to the constant fear of being killed.
This just all sucks so bad...
There is probably no emotion more complicated (save maybe love) than being worried about someone you aren’t sure you even care about anymore.
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May 9th, 2004
01:03 pm - A long entry for a long absence
It all began because of Olivia Burnette...
See, when I was 11 years old I lived in a town called Rock Springs, Wyoming. With a population of just under 19,000 people not much happened in Rock Springs, but one of the big things was bowling night. More a social status thing than a bowling thing, every Sunday night families would converge on their nearest bowling ally to bowl, gossip, etc...
In my household, not going to bowling night was not an option. My Mom, always more concerned with appearances than she was with actual happiness, was not going to have people think that just because she was on welfare her family was a wreck (it was, but that’s a blog for another time). So bowling night was a regular thing for us.
Funny physics lessons for you, if you take two identical glasses of water, freeze one of them, the frozen one will be heavier than the one you didn’t freeze. Doesn’t seem like all that important a fact, but if you’re the owner of a bowling alley and your gutters get clogged it can be very important, especially when that water freezes and causes the roof to collapse. Such was the case one fateful November in 1991 and so consequentially, bowling night was cancelled.
Forced to fend for ourselves on the entertainment front, we (as I’m sure most of the families did) turned to the TV. That’s when I discovered a show called the Torkelsons. The Torkelsons was about...well, to be honest it didn’t matter what it was about what mattered was that it starred an actress named Olivia Burnette and from that point on, I was smitten.
Now, in case you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing such an event, let me tell you that you would be AMAZED at how fast the roof over a bowling alley can be repaired. Much to my chagrin, two weeks after the collapse bowling night was back on and I was not a happy camper. Very little, and I mean VERY little, could convince me to risk the wrath of my mother especially when it came to Rock Springs answer to the country club, bowling night. But, the hormones of an 11 year old in love are not to be underestimated and on this point I stood up to her and refused to go. Convinced that I would weather whatever mental or physical abuses that was thrown at me, I stood my ground and eventually, got my way.
This turned out to be a far better thing than I could have ever imagined, not only did I get the place all to myself, not only did I get to see the love of my life every week (I was 11, give me a break), but my punishment for not going to bowling night (no dinner on Sundays) turned out to be a great excuse to eat junk food for dinner (thanks to my after school job at Rich’s Cards and Comics which paid me $10 a day). One problem, The Torkelsons was a ½ hour show and, as it turns out, the rest of the shows on Sunday night weren’t all that good (actually, in retrospect, the Torkelsons probably wasn’t all that good being it was cancelled after only one season, but what did I care).
Sometimes, boredom can be just as much the author of invention as anything else, and it was in this particular case. I discovered that, with the clever use of some tin foil, the TV antenna, and some very precise positioning, I could pick of Los Angeles’ KFI AM640 radio station in Wyoming. At the time, my Dad lived in the Los Angeles area and when I had lived with him over the summer, I had gotten hooked on talk radio in particular, KFI. I discovered that Sunday nights were covered by a guy I had never heard of before, a host by the name of Joe Crummey.
Joe was an odd fellow, sort of a clown, but a clown that still took the world seriously and could still discuss serious topics. Joined by his ultra conservative "evil side" and his whinny feminist side "Lolitta" (both just clever uses of reverb and Joe’s voice), Joe would discuss the issues of the day. Be it presidential politics or the evil of yard sales, Joe had something to say about it. Those Sundays really came to mean a lot to me, especially as my life in Wyoming began to deteriorate. It was helpful to listen to a Los Angeles radio show and to have that time away from the, shall we say "drama", that was life with my mom.
As for Joe, he became a symbol of fun a respite in my life (Olivia, along with her TV series, was gone within a few months). Eventually, I’d move to the Los Angeles area myself, go through High School, College (well, still going, but you get the idea), and basically make a whole new (far happier) life for myself here in the LA area. Through it all, Joe was almost always there. Moving from Sundays, to Saturdays, to both, to the fill-in spot at KFI (basically, the guy who gets called first if a regular week day host gets sick). Eventually, he’d move away from KFI to the newly christened 710Talk (AM 710) as their weekday afternoon host until that station imploded due to low ratings (it’s since been both the "Disney" network for kids and is now the "ESPN" network for adults).
Through the years I really got to know the guy through his show. Be it his being diagnosed with a brain tumor (I still have the “Crummey Tumor Video” that he sold to pay for the operation), to his marriage to wife Kathy a.k.a. "the Princess" and the birth of his son Eddie (named after Joe who’s real name is Edward Joseph Crummey). This was very eye opening to me because I learned a lot about events in life that I will eventually have to live through myself and in a way was prepared for some of the pit falls I’ll eventually have to deal with in my own life as far as marriage, children, etc...
Anyway, after the implosion of 710Talk, Joe would wander around the various stations in LA, doing a fill in here and there. I’d always try to catch him when I could but I had really grown away from Talk Radio (I lean conservative, but no where near THAT conservative) and it became harder and harder to find where he would be. Eventually I simply lost him completely.
About half a year ago I got really sick, and if you’ve never been really sick let me tell you, your life pretty much grinds to a halt. I spent many a night staring up at the ceiling feeling sorry for myself and for how miserable my life had become. One such Saturday night, after discovering the TV shows on a Saturday night are about as bad, if not worse, than the shows on Sunday nights all those years ago, I started popping through the channels on the AM radio and low and behold, there was my old pal Joe doing a show on Saturday nights from 6pm to 9pm.
Since that time, Joe’s been a regular appointment for me on Saturday nights. Even as I’ve gotten better and started to get my social life back, 6 to 9 on Saturdays have always been taken (And for those who thought I was just trying to be mysterious when I said that "I was busy" and that "you wouldn’t understand", now you know, and my bet is that you don’t understand, so THERE!). I also try to make a point of eating nothing but junk food on those Saturday nights, heck, I even did a search on ebay to see if anyone was selling home recordings of The Torkelsons (they weren’t, adding credence to the idea that it probably wasn’t that great a show to begin with).
Anyway, last night, Joe announced that after 16 years on the air in the LA area (give or take a brief hiatus here and there) he was moving on. Starting Monday, Joe will be doing weeknights from 7pm to 10pm on KFYI in Phoenix, Arizona leaving his KABC gig behind. Luckily, in this internet world we live in, I can still catch Joe on the web, but I still can’t help but feel it’s the end of an era.
So, Joe, where ever you are, good luck to you. Twice you helped pull me through some pretty rough times and more times than I can count you’ve provided me with hours of pretty decent entertainment, for all of that you have my thanks. I can only hope that the love struck, depressed 11 years olds of phoenix know just how luck they are.
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April 8th, 2004
10:00 am - Observations on Reality...
So, I don’t know what to be more disappointed in, the fact that John Stevens (American Idol) was not in the bottom three last night after butchering a song so badly that I had to hit mute or that Americans turned out in droves to watch “The Swan” on Fox, a show that represents the very worst of humanity.
But first, American Idol…A word to the people who keep calling in to support John Stevens, it’s CRUEL! Seriously, this guy gets raked over the coals by the judges every night at this point, only to get pounded in every newspaper/online account the next day. He has no chance of winning this competition, your just prolonging his suffering, cut it out!
That out of the way, American Idol is fascinating to me. What it has going for it is that it’s the ultimate “water cooler” show but at the same time, you have to wonder how long the audience is going to put up with such blatant manipulation. Production wise, I don’t think there is anything about that show that could be worse than what it is. An example, last night in the “1/2 hour results show that has been stretched to an hour for ratings” they actually split the kids into three groups for the sole purpose of adding a segment to the show. Moreover, the last 20 minutes of the show were split into segments in which the commercial breaks were longer than the actual parts of show. It’s just gotten ridiculous at this point.
So, the question is, how long can you abuse your audience before they revolt and just stop watching? I don’t know the answer, but with the blatant abuses getting more and more evident, it will be interesting to find out.
On to The Swan, now I should warn you that I didn’t actually watch this show, but knowing the premise and having read/been told several accounts of it I feel comfortable saying that it is one of the most despicable shows ever conceived. Basically, what they do is take “ugly” women with low self esteem and terrible lives and put them through thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery so that they can come out “beautiful” and participate in a beauty contest.
Now, were attractiveness really the problem for these women (or anyone for that matter) I’d say great, but lets face it, there are far deeper issues here and this show is just using that to exploit some pretty fragile women in the hopes that they won’t realize that beauty didn’t solve all their problems until after the show has concluded. It truly horrifies me.
Oh, and as for the Bachelor (another show I didn’t watch but who hasn’t heard of this incident), I guess the guy forgot the name of the woman he liked, gave the rose to the wrong woman, and then had to take it back and give it to the right one (and presumably learn her name). Way to shake the “dumb jock” image there dude!
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April 6th, 2004
01:01 pm - Why am I such a jerk? The answer you've all been waiting for...
A while back, when I was much younger, I became obsessed with finding out where I came from. Not enough to go digging in grave yards with a genealogy program, but enough to ask my parents their nationality and hunt down people of that nationality.
Anyway, one of the things I found was that I had a (reasonably) large amount of American Indian in me. Further, I found that there was a tribal settlement not too far from where I lived. So, having way more time on my hands than any person should, I headed down there.
During my time there, I met someone who would be a friend of mine for many years to come. Despite his advanced age (91 when I met him) he was very progressive in his thought process and we would go for hours some times debating the nature of man, morality, and the civilized world.
This is not the story of one of those times. Yet, the conversation that is detailed below ranks up there as one of the most life altering I’ve ever had. It went something like this…
Him – You seem troubled?
Me – I am. I just want to be normal, like every other kid, why can’t I have that? (my little rant was actually quite a bit longer but that’s the gist)
Him – Well……I hate to be the one to tell you this but I think that ship has already sailed and I don’t think you were on it.
Yes, at first I thought it was a little cruel to be that blunt (and to play it for laughs while he was at it) but, as time went by, I grew to appreciate the honesty. We live in a very dishonest world, at this point it seems the no matter what type of person you are you spend a great amount of your time lying. Even your friends can’t be trusted because they lie “to spare your feelings” or “because they didn’t think you’d want to know”.
Anyway, that little bit of honesty inspired me to change my ways. I promised myself that, no matter what the circumstances, I was going to call it like I see it from that point on. I would never force my opinion on anyone, but if asked, I wasn’t going to lie.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m always right or that I have some magical gift for seeing the truth, as a matter of fact, I’ll go so far as to say that a great deal of the time my honest opinion is wrong. But, the way I figure it, it doesn’t much matter. Most of the time, the stuff people really want to know is the stuff that is obvious to everyone (“Am I ugly?”, “can I sing well?”, “Am I stupid?”) Might not be the right way to live a life but someone’s got to do it and it might as well be me.
So, if you’ve ever thought I was too blunt, or obnoxious, or simply wondered why I didn’t just lie to make someone feel better, now (for better or worse) you know why.
(oh, except for my age, I always add a couple years to my age because no one takes me seriously otherwise (every rule needs an exception))
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March 10th, 2004
07:11 pm - and...
It is done.
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March 9th, 2004
06:08 pm - Welp...
Here goes nothing.
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March 7th, 2004
06:53 pm
So, I decided to pop into work earlier tonight to do some last minute things before everyone gets in Monday morning.
Across the street from my work are a row of houses, and in front of one of those houses was a girl, 12 or 13, sitting in a foldable chair in her garage just looking at the sky and I have to admit it cheered me up. Seeing her there reminded me of just how great a summer night can be if you stop to enjoy it.
It really is a perfect night tonight, hadn’t realized it until I saw her, but the temp. is just about perfect (80 degrees), the sky is completely clear, and there’s a very calm breeze. So, after finishing up at work, I drove up a hill and just sat on the hood of my car for a while and stared up at the stars.
Anyway, kind of a rambling post, but if it inspires one person to take advantage of a warm summer night, I’ll be a happy man.
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February 24th, 2004
10:28 am - It's a long post, but if you divide it by 18 it's short (think about it)
What an odd night last night was…
I went to see a preview of “Passion of the Christ”, which for those living under a rock for the last few weeks is Mel Gibson’s movie about the last days of Jesus Christ’s life. I have odd religious views but I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a Christian (but at the same time I wouldn’t say that I’m not a Christian either, but that is an entry for another time).
Anyway, my point was that, Christ or not, this movie is difficult to watch because the violence is insanely disturbing. Honestly, 10 times worse than Saving Private Ryan in my opinion. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that, true to life, the movie follows a much mangled Jesus around as he’s beaten, stabbed, etc… By the end, it’s hard to look at him at all, even if there’s no violence happening at that particular moment. To make matter worse, it’s in Latin/Aramaic with subtitles so you can’t exactly look away during the worst parts.
All that said, the movie is very good. I’m not talking “eh, that movie was good” I’m talking “every film student should see this movie” good. Every shot is set up and executed masterfully. Literally what people talk about when they say brilliant film making. But like I said, be warned, it’s not a story about Christ it’s the story of the torture and crucifixion of Christ and is accordingly violent.
Oh, and it’s not Anti-Semitic…
Otherwise, life has been, how shall we say, interesting… Here’s the deal, I work for a company that provides health care services to kids. The county pays for these services, but because of some weird rule in our particular area, this is done through an intermediary company. So, the county pays that company, who then pays us. Now the question is: what happens when that intermediary company declares bankruptcy? We don’t seem to know yet, but we’re trying to figure it out REAL quick (being they did declare bankruptcy a little over a week ago). Plus, as you might imagine, the intermediary company still owes us (as well as just about everyone else) quite a bit of money. So, for now we wait, and “keep on keeping on” as they say until it gets sorted out.
I finally got a new web site up for the company which was more than a small victory for me. I ended up scrapping the content management angle for political reasons (easier to edit everything myself than to argue for months over who has the right to edit what). It’s no where near as good as I hoped it would be, but it’s serviceable and that will have to do until I recharge enough to take a look at what the political implications of making an update will be.
I was recently advised to get a ladel recently so I did, but as of right now, I’ve yet to discover what it’s actually used for. I have gotten really good at balancing it on my nose though which is a skill I’m particularly proud of. But that’s all I’ve done with it thus far (sorry Micki, but I did try!)
I don’t watch much TV in general but what I do watch I look forward to which is why I’ve been a little disappointed by sweeps season this February. Between the suckfest (no, that isn’t an actual word, so sue me!) that was American Idol last week and some rather lackluster performances from my other favorites I’m starting to wonder why I watch this stuff at all. I’m also a little disturbed by the fact that half of what I watch is reality TV these days (Survivor, American Idol, and The Apprentice vs. That 70’s Show, Cold Case, Without a Trace, and Joan of Arcadia when I don’t forget to record it).
On a final note, I learned recently that an old friend of mine is very sick. Don’t have much to say in relation to that but being this is supposed to be a representation of what is on my mind and this is weighing very heavily on my mind, I thought I would mention it.
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February 6th, 2004
01:35 pm
So, I have to admit to having been really disturbed by something today.
For the record, I try my best to avoid the whole “Gay Marriage” topic of discussion because I find that I usually learn things about people that I like/respect that I didn’t want to know. Such was the case yesterday…
Now, don’t get me wrong, I can stand to disagree with someone. What I think of you really isn’t going to be that adversely affected by the fact that you think we should tax the rich/poor and give tax breaks to the poor/rich. But I think we all have fundamental truths in our head, things that seems so indisputable that we’re forced to think lesser of those who disagree with us on it. Luckily, there are only a few topics like that out there, abortion, race relations, etc…
For me, homosexuality is one of them. I think it’s because I don’t see it as just a person thinking its wrong but more as one person trying to force another to live a miserable life so that they can feel more comfortable.
Anyway, I was part of a discussion about this, and one of the guys brought up that he didn’t see the distinction between a gay man and a pedophile, and at that point I just had to remove myself from the conversation.
The really disturbing part about this is that the person in questions (the one that couldn’t see the distinction) isn’t a bad person. I know he isn’t a bad person, and that opens up a whole new can of worms. We all have a moral compass inside ourselves that tells us what is right and what is wrong, and whether we realize it or not we’re heavily dependent on that to get through the day. Now, I’m forced to look at this otherwise good person and say, their moral compass is simply wrong, and in realizing that, put my own moral compass into question.
You have to at least consider that he could be right. As sure as I am about this, his point isn’t entirely illogical. Sure people are born gay but people are also born schizophrenic and as sociopaths, could homosexuality just be something that needs to be cured? Beyond that, you can say that it doesn’t hurt anyone but in the end, it hurts us as a society in that gay couples can’t reproduce. As far as Emmanuel Kant (father of one of the three dominant ethical systems in history) is concerned, homosexuality is immoral and that isn’t based on religion but on his belief that an act that can not be universalized is immoral. It’s a lot more confusing than I think people give it credit for.
I learned a long time ago that the majority of evil that is done in this world is done not by evil people but by good people who trusted so much in their internal moral compass that they failed to see the harm they were actually causing. I don’t think I’ll ever agree that homosexuality is a sin against humanity or that it needs to be cured, but in my choice to believe that school of thought is wrong and that thinking that way will only lead to pain and suffering, I also have to accept that I might be the misguided one and that my support of homosexuality might lead to the same pain and suffering that is the very cause of me being opposed to them. That, is a disturbing thought.
Seeing the big picture rarely makes your life easier I guess.
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