over the hill... or under the gun?

I like getting older...  honestly, I hated childhood-- totally fucking hated it.  I'll be 31 in a few weeks and I like that...  no more of the social pressure of the 20's.  I dress how I want (New Balance shoes for the arch support), listen to the music I want, and hang out with the people I want.  I also find that day to day, I am different than I was even just a couple years ago.  The morning is no longer my enemy.  I don't set my alarm for an hour before I have to be at work, hit the snooze a couple times, and then rush.  I like getting up a couple hours early.  I like to walk through the neighborhood to the coffee shop.  I like the walk home smoking a cigarette and drinking iced toddy-- standing in front of my shack for the last couple drags.

I like my bar to be quiet.  Weekends I stay in and try to get better sleep, because now I can go hiking again.  Nobody ever wants to go hiking with me-- and that's great.  I like being by myself in the desert.  I no longer have to feel guilty or bad because I like being alone.  Antisocial? no...  Unfriendly? no...  I just like it.  You know, like Bukowski said, "I don't hate people, I just feel better when they're not around."  That's not necessarily true but its a sentiment I keep close to my heart-- out of principle. 

There is a drive with youth that I sometimes feel I should have latched onto...  and I think that's true-- I could have used and still could use more motivation in my life.  I've seen that drive go completely haywire, though.  How many divorces, unwanted babies, and drug addictions have we all seen?  But that's even a cop-out.  I'm not traveling the world or saving lives...  that doesn't mean I can't in the future.

But at this age, its too easy to look back on your twenties and see waste.  Its easy to see the credit card bills, medical bills, paycheck to paycheck way of life as if you've stepped under a cement mixer.  That's not what it is.  Its the consequences and happenstances of your life.  Sometimes it's an unwanted message...  but its a reminder that we are in control.  I did this...  my parents didn't do this...  the other kids didn't do this...  The trap of being raised middle class and feeling entitled to things I didn't earn-- well, lesson learned and being paid for.  Ignoring my leg going numb randomly for over a year-- lesson learned and not to be repeated.... friends and family lost in fray-- greatly missed...

Of course, at this point you realize that the dreaded "The Man" is there to capitalize on all your downfalls.  But atleast you know he's not some mythical beast you rage against and that he's a real motherfucker and you learn how to avoid as many of his tricks as possible (although, I still support the raging)....  some days you'll be lucky and just as he's about to stick his fist in your ass, you dodge and laugh about reaching your out-of-pocket maximum...  oh, and then realize that if you've hit your OOP max, you've had a pretty bad year...  but none the less, these bills are on him-- you take what you can get and ask for as many unnecessary medical treatments as possible... 

I guess I like the knowledge and comfort of getting older.  I feel like I finally have the tools to maintain myself rather than constantly trying to figure out who that is.  Not that I can't change or that I make perfect decisions, but I know a bad decision when I'm making it.  I know when I fuck up.

But really, the best part is not having to dress like an idiot...  seriously...

Favortie Albums of 2009

Here are my favorites for the year... did I miss anything really amazing?  By the way, I wish I knew who this guy was...  I would like to be his friend...  no, I'm lying...  I would like to crop dust him...

Atlas Sound – Logos
Jim O’Rourke – The Visitor
Akron/Family – Set ‘em Wild, Set ‘em Free
Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish I Were and Eagle
Woods – Songs of Shame
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Karen O and the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are
Vic Chesnutt – Skitter on Take-Off
Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine
Japandroids – Post-nothing
Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
Fly Girls! B-Boys Beware: Revenge of the Super Female Rappers

you are breathing chicken shit-- a response to Foer's Eating Animals

During a 3am trip to Riva's the other night, I found myself questioned about  being vegetarian.  I used to always defend my diet choice politely by stating why meat is an inefficient way to get nutrients and to feed a global population, but I found myself in an unending monologue—spouting off all the reasons why the meat industry is a destructive and disgusting global disaster.   Before I read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, I would have felt guilty bombarding someone (eating rolled tacos) with what I really felt about what they were doing.  But not now—and it’s really inconvenient to feel this way.

When you try to talk to someone about the meat industry, they simply do not want to know—and they have no problems telling you that.  Honestly, I am the same way.  I wanted to go off into my vegetarian world, be able to sit down with friends and eat and be fine with the fact that I eat one way and they eat another.  Now it’s a little harder. 

The things that bother me now are socially and ecologically conscious friends (meat eating)—you know the folks who grocery shop with canvas bags, ride their bikes whenever they can, and talk shit about people who drive huge SUV’s and Hummers.  The meat industry is the world’s largest contributor to global warming.  The transportation industry comes nowhere close. 

Why do people take such offense when you talk about this stuff?  It’s just another huge industry run by assholes who don’t care about us and just want to make as much money as possible no matter what the cost.  You can talk shit about the oil, healthcare, military, and auto industries.  Would you trust the people at Halliburton or Blackwater to produce your food for you?  Well, we are trusting people just as awful. 

And it would be fine if it didn’t affect me (except for random reminders of the animal cruelty and the ecological destruction).  Meat eaters could go on and eat chicken that nine times out of ten is infected with e.coli, salmonella, or some other type of avian disease before it ever hits the shelves at the grocery store whenever they wanted.  And they can tell themselves that those random 24 bugs are just little fluke flu’s and have nothing to do with their food.  All flu’s are bird flu. They all come from avian flu and we are constantly helping them mutate by putting them in our bodies.  I'm gonna get sick because America can't put down their chicken tenders.

OK…  so this is what I mean.  I meant to write a short response to JSF’s new book about what a craftsman he is-- how his nonfiction is just as touching and powerful as his novels.  Now when I see people eating meat—at restaurants or the break room at work—I get pissed.  It’s a globally destructive thing that according to the American Dietetic Association (ADA) is completely unnecessary (for people of all ages) and increases your chances of a number of life shortening diseases.   All this because people like the taste?  Quitting meat is not hard…  it’s not like getting off of heroin or even like quitting smoking.  I did it years ago.  You don’t go through withdrawals.  You don’t get the shakes.  What’s the deal?

Foer’s new book is not like Michael Pollan.  It’s not there to help rich people feel better about themselves by eating free-range.  It makes you question meat and question yourself.  Why don't we know anything about the thing that’s most important to our survival?  It's ridiculous.  Its like Soylent Green  but the information is easier to obtain.  JSF writes the same themes he’s explored in his novels—shame, family history, sacrifice, and making amends-- though this time, we are not only along for the ride.  It’s brilliantly written—and now eating meat pisses me off.

Oh, and also—factory farms dispose of chicken shit by spraying it into the air as a mist…  gross…