Entries from December 2007 ↓

You turn the corner and a group of men listening to rap and dressed accordingly (baggy clothes, cocked hats / bandanas, etc) are blocking the sidewalk you were going to use. If you cross the street rather than excuse-me-pardon-me navigate your way through the middle of them, does that make you a racist? I would hope not, since I didn’t even mention the race of the men involved.

Rather, it is practical application of the “gangsta” stereotype in an effort to keep oneself safe from harm. Race need not be at all involved, as groups of people fulfilling the “gangsta” stereotype are just as undesirable to walk through if they are black and in Detroit, or blue-eyed-blonde-haired-farmer’s-sons in a suburb of Des Moines.

When seeking to define oneself, if you choose to adhere to an existing stereotype rather than creating your own identity, you deserve the negative repercussions of that association. If I choose to dress and bathe like a homeless man, I deserve to be treated as one. If, however, I make an effort to be clean and not dress in rags, I do not deserve being stereotyped as a homeless man. If I were to adopt the extreme flamboyance of a stereotypical homosexual (as perpetuated by heterosexual actors on Will and Grace), I would be succumbing to that stereotype; bowing to the power it holds merely because I allow it to.

Homosexuals in particular have legitimate reason to adopt the flamboyant-fag stereotype — it makes it pretty easy to identify each other from otherwise identical heterosexual men. The problem being that the stereotype is unattractive to many homosexual men, and makes them more reluctant to “out” themselves as a homosexual lest they be perceived as a stereotypical “fag.” At that pont, the negatives involved with that association are not worth the benefits.

The problem with stereotypes in general is that many people do not recognize them as stereotypes, or fully understand that a stereotype is a template but not a mold. They do have practical uses and should continue to exist. Rather than telling our children that stereotypes are nonsense and that they should try to ignore the fact that large groups of people attempt to conform to an identical set of behaviors, we should be telling them that a stereotype is useful for self-preservation but is not all-encompassing nor is it permanent. To adhere to a stereotype should still be perceived as a failure of the individual to define their self, never as an ideal form of expression of self. One example of the bizarre affirmation-rather-than-condemnation of stereotypes is the “Gay Pride” parade. A “White Trash NASCAR-Loving Wife-Beater Parade” should cause an equal amount of eye-rolling if it were to occur.

Today I went out to see Sweeney Todd at the local suburban Minnesota theater — a Carmike Cinemas theater. The showing was at 4:05pm, so I arrived at 4:00 on the dot, moments before they began seating. I chose a seat, sat down, and waited. The fat cunts behind me talked obnoxiously-loudly about a friend of theirs getting suspended from school. They appeared to be at the movie with their illegitimate father, or perhaps the high school janitor that they exchange favors with for tickets to an R-rated movie on Christmas eve.

Anyhow, one of the trailers caught my attention. A band named “Three Doors Down” apparently shot a music video for a song of theirs, “Citizen Soldier” for the National Guard. It was three minutes of doom-and-gloom, with hilarious comparisons of National Guardsmen in Iraq with Minutemen fighting the British during the American Revolution. I am sorry, but being led into war with our President’s father’s old buddy is not the same as earning our nation’s independence from the British. How fucking tasteless and, frankly, pathetic. Is scouring high schools around the US for drop-outs no longer sufficient?

Thankfully, there was justice-poetic, as one of the next trailers was one for Stop Loss. I imagine that the rest of the theater, including the twitching jackasses behind me, didn’t appreciate the irony. Their loss.

So, 31 minutes later, at 4:36, the movie FINALLY started. I had lost count of how many trailers I’d seen — only the one for Stop Loss looked any good. Over all, it is a pretty gruesome flick. There is a lot of throat slitting, and it’s all very.. gushy. I’ve seen reviewers recommend that those who enjoy the SAW movies go see Sweeney Todd, but I disagree. I don’t think that they would be able to sit through the introductory song, much less all the ones that follow, and the plot would escape the average SAW-enthusiast. If you don’t mind a musical, like Johnny Depp, enjoy a good revenge movie and can stomach a bit of gore, I highly recommend that you go see it. I give Sweeney Todd 4.5 out of 5 buckets of mystery-meat.

Well, on Thursday I flew out to MN for Christmas, and am there currently. The flight went well — my first first-class flight, ever — and aside from a little ear-pain was fairly uneventful. After the flight, however, I stood in line behind six old people at the baggage claim as they flipped, patted, rubbed, or otherwise abused EVERY fucking suitcase that came on the carousel, trying to determine if it was theirs or not. Being too polite, I stood there and waited for 10 minutes for them to finally prod the correct suitcases and get out of my way. This led me to be nearly-late for my bus from the burbs to downtown Minneapolis to meet Andrew. I left my luggage with my dad, grabbed Andrew’s present, and made it just in time to meet him at Pizza Lucé downtown.

I was a little worried that Andrew and I would have nothing to talk about, as though we speak nearly every day on AIM, we haven’t seen each other irl for several years. It was surprising how much we had to talk about, and it was tough to cut the conversation short at 2 hours so I could make the bus back to the burbs. It was delightful, and hopefully it doesn’t take another 3-5 years to see him again.

Saturday, I met up with Ryan and Marty downtown for brunch and some last-minute Christmas shopping. I had a lovely time hanging out with them. It was great seeing them again, and perhaps next time it will be in S-town.

The very idea of “affordable housing” (with quotes) is nonsensical. It circumvents market forces to offer rental property to people at half the actual price, but with a renter-salary cap. When I was planning my move to Seattle I encountered several nice apartments (such as a little studio in Pioneer Square) which I was unable to move into because I didn’t make low-enough of a salary. That’s idiotic. If I move to New York City and want to live downtown but make only $40,000 / year, I shouldn’t live downtown.

There is already affordable housing — without the quotes. It exists in the suburbs. If you don’t make enough money to be able to afford living downtown, live in the suburbs and commute until you can afford living in the city. If you think you will never be able to afford it, you need to take a moment to consider exactly why that is.

Everyone should have a five-year plan which includes improving their financial situation. Accepting undeserved hand-outs should never be a part of that plan. For the record, making minimum wage (or less) does not make someone any more deserving than does being related to a dead rich white guy. The “lack” of “affordable housing” is not an issue. The lack of forethought / planning and intelligent decisions on the part of people in the market to rent, is. Rather than bribing developers like Vulcan with “affordable housing” requirements, educate the renting masses in how best to plan their lives and let the housing market take care of the housing market.

Today I was asked how much I would have to be paid in order to become black. After some head-scratching the terms were laid out: reality would be magically altered, and nothing else would change, I’d just be black. I didn’t bother asking if I would have a larger penis.

My response was a bit of a puzzled “nothing?” as I feel the question is disingenuous. What the question-poser really wanted to know was why being black would be more or less desirable than my current skin-tone. Why dance around that question by attempting to pose a less sincere version of it in hopes of tricking someone to answer “correctly?”

The answer is that it really doesn’t matter on any level. My maternal grandfather was Mexican. Two of my grandmothers were Native American (different tribes.) My mixed ethnicity means nothing to me until I fill out government-required forms, and even then it means trying to figure out what box(es) to check. Due to the racist nature of these questions I never answer caucasian, even though that would be the largest piece of my ethnicity-pie. Beyond checking boxes, it means nothing to me. I don’t consider myself Catholic, nor do I actively identify with either Native American tribe. My identity is not dependent on my parents or my grandparents or my great-grandparents. No ones should be, but sadly, that’s rarely the case.

Some people give up because they grew up “on the streets” and don’t seek anything beyond that existence. Some allow themselves to be defined by the religion they were raised with. Others become willing slaves of the dollars they throw around. Whether they are the loud black homeless addicts that live in the park outside my apartment, or obnoxious drunken white frat-boys, their existence is equally inconvenient for me. Since I don’t live in the U district I have less exposure to the latter than the former, but know with confidence that I feel contempt for both groups equally. In both cases basic decency is ignored in favor of adherence to negative stereotypes.

A friend of mine — we’ll call him “Patrick” — has been angsty lately due to coming to the realization that our existence is pointless in the universe-level context. Well, duh. We are infinitesimally small and insignificant compared to the physical universe and “the universe” in quotes. Whether we live or die as a species means nothing to the billions of billions of billions of billions of stars, planets, solar systems, galaxies, perhaps even universes that reality consists of. Whether we do anything as individuals means even less..

..and that’s fine.

The relative pointlessness of our existence is a reality. We cannot alter reality. Instead, in order to live fulfilling lives — for the relative fraction of a nanosecond we do exist — we must learn what it is that makes us happy as individuals and strive towards that end. Barring physiological limitations, each person has something which makes them happy and for which they wake up in the morning.

An easy answer for many is family and friends. While that could be considered noble, to place your self-worth entirely in the hands of others is potentially dangerous. Not everything we aspire to must be easily accomplished, so don’t take a shortcut in an attempt to reach enlightenment (sotospeak) at the risk of being torn down (intentionally or not) by the others you rely so heavily upon.

Reality is important, but our perception of reality is upon which we base our existences. To turn the power of perception over to others (cough, religion, cough) we surrender our wills, and our lives to those others. That is not noble. It is stupid, lazy, (at best) misguided.