Business Catch #1

I've got it! I've got it! Eureka!

I'll make a deal with Nike to invent (hopefully) the first series of pump-action push-up bras! And if not the first, who cares?! It's Nike. Ladies would wear them like sports bras. And then Nike could revive the deadened pump-shoes in a co-release and make double-bank off of a retro, slightly redesigned product.

Awexome.

Oh so Grand, the Rapids

So last night, while I was roiling about in a crowd of people I've never met, sponging up the bath of countless sweaty rivulets amassing together on my skin, mixed in with my own concoction of salt, water, and whatever the hell else is in there, I was thinking: "How many people probably touched me that have some strange disease? Owe some massive payment from debt? Just lost somebody close in the last month from death? Or even have some paper they need to write that they haven't started on?" I started thinking about the wildest things that would make somebody worried, angry, upset, confused, bitter...things people would sweat over, to use the phrase contextually. When the show was done and over with, I was a half wrung-out dish rag, and I wondered how many peoples' burdens of life I carried with me in the fabrics of my clothes. I wondered how many people had excreted those pains, along with their sweat, in joyous celebration of music they enjoyed, and left that place with just a little bit less of a reason to sweat. Of course, we were all in the same environment, so those people were inevitably caught in the same cycle as I was, and I equally transferred any of my own sweat onto them too. Thus, they equally carried along my sweat in their clothes.

The great thing with shows too is that you don't really get much opportunity to wash it all off until you get home. You ride along and the mixture of dog breath dances with your immediate memories. You play back the scenes from an hour or two before, over and over in your head, along with the hundreds or thousands of other people that are likely doing the same, and it all never really escapes you until the shower hits, and you're standing under a stream of refreshing water. No salt, no other chemicals: just straight water. Then you start to break away from the correlation of the other folk who plastered you in sweat. Then you are free to move on.

The power of live music is majestic. Curing. Persistent. Enthralling. Enlightening.

HxC

Tonight, I am going to Pontiac, MI to see three magnificent bands play: August Burns Red, Bring Me The Horizon, and Emarosa, all of whom have brand new or relatively new CD's that I have not yet heard live. Seeing new things with live music is an amazing feeling for me. New venues, new band members, new songs from bands I've already seen before...there are so many reasons that keep me going back. And I must say, it has been a while since I've been to a show with any edge. Good bands I've seen lately, but not nearly enough energy (minus Dan Deacon) as I like from crowds. Should be gooooooooooooood.

Ascension

Relatively close to what Othello said, "If I were to die today, I'd be most happy."

I went to Old Farm Shore discgolf park today in Kentwood. I played eighteen holes and got the best score of my life on that course (or any other course for that matter): six under (-6). I was extremely pleased with this, and am now more excited than ever for next year. I really hope I will follow through with playing in tournaments.

I'm also hoping that some disc golf park reviews will find themselves in my blog in the near future. Done by me, that is.

A whole new definition for "putting your money where your mouth is"

So I've been enlightened over the past year to this really obscure federal law that has been circulating around the...well...the arena of politics, I suppose. You'll have to pardon my absence of intelligible diction when it comes to these kind of things. I'll let you in on a secret: the classes that taught me that subject material went in one ear and out the other, for a simple letter grade. I'm a whore to the system.

ALAS! This bill, labeled S. 510, pertains to the freedom of farmers and "other people" to grow/distribute their own food to the public. Essentially, what I'm picking up from all of the summaries and jargon I've shuffled through, it would be nearly illegal (or possibly just that) for anybody to grow their own food unless they're approved and monitored by the FDA. That's the Food and Drug Administration, for anybody new to that term. Personally, when I see "FDA," it rings like any other lawful acronyms. FBI, CIA, other governmental administrations that I don't care about...it just sounds like another law-abiding authoritative figure. And THAT'S where the scary shit comes in play, though.

I like to hear about conspiracies. I'm not trying to make a tirade about how everything is out to get us US citizens, but at the same time, the belief that our government wants the best for each and every citizen sounds a bit phony to me. There are too many of us here for me to actually believe the law cares about our health and well being, and this here S. 510 bill would be the just epitome of that there conviction. The fact that this bill is hardly as easy to research on the internet than the more well-known bills of the United States' history's past could signify one of two things: either this bill is surrounded by an air of negativity from the various conspirators roaming on the internet (as most articles you will find read this bill in a negative manner) and was blown way out of proportion, or the government wants to cover something up, big time. Well, I'm sure there are far more reasons than just that as to why you can't find much about it, but I like to believe it gives my argument some weight.

Nonetheless, I like to play my cards safely in life. I like to assume the worst, and whenever I crack open a hearty can of Campbell's soup or peel back a fresh box of Cheez-Its, I'm pretty sure all of those ingredients added are not there for my own personal well-being, unless you're taking note of my palette. My mouth may like it, but my health probably doesn't. So what happens if all food administrators are controlled by the same company responsible for these ingredients? Just take a look at this site and maybe do a bit of reading for yourself.

http://www.theworldsprophecy.com/senate-bill-s510-makes-it-illegal-to-grow-share-trade-or-sell-homegrown-food/

It's right about now...

that I wish I were on the other side of the world. The diminishing daylight at earlier times is nothing but a saddening promise of the bitterness winter brings; the one season of them all where we must literally fight to survive. You can manage in the spring, summer, and fall, but winter brings conditions completely intolerable to our bodies.

Mentally too, management is a HUGE issue. Think there's a reason many people feel dismal in the winter? It's not science, it's just suck. Unless you've got something to keep you occupied out there, like snowboarding, winter straight up blows.

Thus, I wish I could have one of these for Christmas!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzVopxyadaY

Mudbloody Half-Truths

Today, my sister who lives in Mt. Pleasant is traveling down to Grand Rapids to get her hair done. Well, my half-sister, that is. Before my dad met my mom, he was married to a different lady, of whom he made most sensuous love and created a lass named Jill. The typical story ensues: they divorced, he met my mom, the goods in the woods, and finally, the origin of this post.

When I take the time to ponder it, it makes absolute sense as to why she is called my "half-sister." Half of her genetics, which flow just the same in my body, are interspersed with a half of somebody's who technically isn't related to me. It's in the math, it really is. But when my throat fails to exhale the "half-sister" claim whenever I introduce her or speak of her to anybody, I wonder, "Are the half of my genetics shared with her stepping up and laying the smack down on social and biological restraints which deem her half of mine? Or am I just too lazy to make that three-syllable claim unless somebody inquires further?" It really is a bitch having to say things like, "my half-sister..." or "guess what my ex-step-dad did?" Unless the term in question ends in "in-law," I'd hardly say any of these problems would persist if divorce wasn't such an issue anyways.

Blood is blood. It's all blue inside, red outside. Simple colors, undoubtedly, carry very little weight in an argument that a half-sister is still a full sister, but I suppose if I were a nineteenth century American civilian, I'd be right alongside the rest of the evil white men in claiming that every mulatto is just as much of a slave as a sun-baked Kenyan. To me, it's all just the same. I wish I could divulge more into this, and turn it into some literary journalistic piece embedded with great research, but I would hardly know what to start looking for. My knowledge, my scholastic endeavors, are far less tainted by science than they are the urge to express some perplexing and difficult, yet so blaring and obvious fact that I know full well to be true. Opinions, opinions, opinions, onions are white, onions are purple.

Where I am with school, although I absolutely despise various components of the education system, is where I'm certain I should be: studying writing. That's not a half-truth. A half-truth is me saying "school is the only way to make something bigger of your life." Statistics prove that people who graduate college are more "successful" in their endeavors. But "successful in their endeavors" doesn't always mean the Americanized, "let's go out and get a job and make lots of money!" All people don't aspire money.

I know that one of the most prominent subjects of our conversation with my "half-sister" today will be how I'm doing in school. I suppose, in my modernistic views, I think of a functioning family as one who asks these sort of questions and is honestly concerned and considerate of these aspects of another family member's life. I half-doubt that a half-sister could be half as much concerned. I know she fully cares, and that's just great! Go life.