My punching bag has encountered additional problems. The S-hooks that attach the rings, which are attached directly to the bag, to the suspending chains, which are attached directly to the board, which is attached directly to the rafter, were gradually warping into what might be described as Z-hooks, if the typeface depiction is adequate.
The bag, as you might know, weighs in excess of 250 pounds. The S-hooks might be designed to (barely) suspend this weight without creaking from "hooks" into "straights". However, I have this one particular kick that I like to practice called an "axe-kick" or "over-kick." it was probably the only useful thing I learned in all the largely useless years and expenditure at taekwondo school. It's the only thing that caused anyone any worry during sparring. Once, anyway.
Anyhoo, these kicks are executed by swinging a straight leg all the way up, and then bringing it all the way down again, like an axe. The target is the head, face, collarbone, shoulder, etc -- anything it's likely to descend upon. It can be a pretty devastating kick, if done with any force and by someone with really long, flexible legs (me). So, I liked to practice this one on my bag.
Problem is, the kick (obviously) delivers a lot of downward force, something to which the S-hooks were maybe not design to hold up. Eventually, after x days of axe-kicks, they were beginning to get warped to the point where I knew the end was near. So, for some reason, in a desire to finish the job or something, I went nuts with the kicks, slamming them down one after another, until one of the hooks flew off. I don't know why I did this. I totally can't begin to describe why, even though I have some intuitive understanding.
Actually, now that I think about it, it may have been to get the thing down decisively so I could get it back up in a better way. As it was, I wasn't kicking it, for the very reasonable fear it might suddenly come down. So, the solution was to force it down. Why I started to do so without anything to pad the fall is beyond me.
I had prepared a bit, mentally, for such an inevitability, and had figured I'd need a soft object of some kind to put under the bag if and when it was just about to fall to the concrete. This was how my original bag got split open, and crapped 50 pounds of sand out onto the floor through it's wound. I dealt with that, and used the leaked sand to fill a new bag (most of it with a coffee cup, which was pretty funny). I returned the old bag to overstock.com, citing faulty merchandise (haha).
So, I had a working bag for a while, and perfected all of my strikes. My elbows toughened up, and I stopped getting welts on them. I was a machine of doom and destruction. But then, I had my S-hook problems.
Back to the story. So I did all of these axe-kicks on the bag, and one of the hooks finally flew off. For a pad, I decided on this old cardboard couch that an old roommate left behind, to sit underneath the bag to cushion its drop. Ideal.
I used a hammer to pound the other already-bent S-hooks from Z-hooks into something like lightning-bolt hooks. I don't know how to better describe them. Let me try to do it with ASCII art:
1)
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/ \
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\_/
2)
_____
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_____\
3)
/
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/
That's pretty much what happened to my hooks. Stage 4) was flying across the room onto the work-table. After the first hook did its thing, I beat the other hooks out of their rings with a hammer. The bag came down after hanging courageously from the last hook for a time, and went PLOP down onto the el cheapo couch.
Now, it's there:
It's 250 lbs, so it's not going to be moving for a while. I'll need to get NICK and/or (preferrably "and") PESH (hint) over here to help me, after I go and buy some super, galvanized, 10mm, super-awesome S-hooks at lowes. Two of us will lift the thing in the air, and one of us will hook its rings onto the new S-hooks.
That's the plan, eventually. For now, "DAN" stays there, in repose, on the couch, in front of the washing machine. He dents the couch pretty severely with his mass, as you can see.
According to my research, no-one's web-published the lyrics to Bonecrusha's "I Ain't Never Scared," with proper phonemes. Allow me:
LETTA CHOPPA GO: PLOWW!! ..to ya mellin! nowda plasma is ooooooozin OUTTA YA CEREBELLUM! uhteeeeeeeeeeeeenSHUUUUN! fug nigga NOW U SWELLIN! y'aint talkin hardcore now, is ye, little bitch!?!?!?!?! gottemrunninscayed of a A BIGGA NIGGA! aniputtheheattohisummmmmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhhhhhhh HILLFIGGA! cuz ahm onnnnnnnnn dat crank! an oooooooon sumoda dank! pistols ge'in bursted now I nieeeeeeeeeeeeeeud sompin t'drank! SO I'm OUTSIDE OF DA CLUB AN YOU THINK IM A PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNK SO AH GO TO MA LOADED TECH-9 THASS OFFINNA TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNK i tol tha' mu'fu I AIN NEVA SCAYED (eass side!) I AIN NEVA SCAYED (wess side!) I AIN NEVA SCAYED (no'th side!) I AIN NEVA SCAYED (south side!)
Future generations will thank me.
Often, missionaries approach with this line:
"Who do you think Jesus was?"
Memorize this answer, just like missionaries memorize their lines:
"If he existed (which he probably did), Jesus was a Jew in Palestine during the Roman occupation who thought he was his people's Messiah, a belief that was relatively common during that era of Zealotry."
Then, just keep walking, and watch out for eye-injuries caused by pamphlet-literature thrust at your face.
In other news: BWAHAHAHAHAHA
Also, my doctor asked me how to "get her site into Google" (a really common concern, understandably). I submitted her URL for her on Google's "submit URL" page, but I think that might be slow-ish. So, I'll link here.
I just designed my first site for pay. This is a momentous occasion, one that will usher in a new chapter in my existence. Well, maybe not that profound, but that'd be great if I got a few more gigs.
A good target market, I think, is personal sites, small businesses, civic organizations, activity-groups and communities -- basically, anyone small-time who wants web-hosting cheaper than "Huge Expensive Web-Design for your Fortune 500 Company, Inc." I guess I'll look into it, and get an idea of what to charge. Suffice to say that I'll definitely be cheaper than the big guys. Here's the site I designed: glutenfreedesserts.com. Oops -- I almost typed "glutenfreeDESERTS.com;" a gluten-free desert would be a barren place indeed. HARHAR.
My hope is that there are a lot of individuals, small businesses, etc, who would like websites. Based on my experience, there sort of are. I'll have to ask my stepbrother for some (shudder) marketing-advice. I almost did the website for The Atlantic Counsel of the United States! You can see how crappy it is, because that fell through, for some reason. I think they never got organized enough to set stuff up; it was through a contact who worked there. A secret contact.
I do actually have a small "portfolio" together, it turns out. Just now, I stuck, in teensy little type and at the bottom of each page I've developed, "Site Developed by mjt.sdf.org." Here are the sites I've put together:
The C&O Canal Association - A non-profit organizations focused on the C&O Canal, its history, culture, and preservation. About 200 members. I went to the annual meeting this year, and was variously patted on the back. Tee-hee.
Alpesh D. Gor - Personal Website - Alper's page. Photos, resume, friendly greeting, and sweet design. Not a sprawling site, but Pesh is welcome to add more content if and when he gets to it. This brings me to something else, which I'll expound upon in a sec (below).
Gluten-Free Desserts - Just what it says; desserts containing no gluten, to which quite a few people have an intollerance. I'm wanting to try one more and more as I work on the site (the store isn't set up yet, I don't have photos of menu/recipe items, and I don't have any written descriptions of the desserts). This also brings me to that same something else (below).
Remembering Katy - Site dedicated to our dog, who died of leukemia one and a half years ago. We're talking about buying her her own domain name.
mjt.sdf.org - heehee.
Here's the thing below: content = writing, which some people can't do very well. Some can, like candocanal.org, which is full of older, highly-educated people, many of whom are seriously into writing in the first place. But, I can provide it too, which I did for glutenfreedeserts.com. This is a huge advantage, according to my mom, who works in usability and web-writing. Basically, I can do everything, and don't need 1) a content-writer, or 2) to pester clients with anything more than requests for raw information. I can even come over and take photos. I need a new digital camera. I can pick up a decent one on craigslist for about $120, apparently.
Other prospects in include a friend's site for her brother who was killed in an auto wreck, the Bennington Community Association (who asked me to do their site for free -- pshhh), and Pesh's brother-the-doctor's professional site. Some other ideas are the Longdraft Coalition, people running for local politicla office, and my various friends and relatives who may or may not want a website, but probably will if "persuaded" to procure one by one of my associates. Haha, just kidding. I think I might also hit vetrinary offices around here, maybe fruit stands, etc. Small businesses that look sort of small-time and un-ornamented.
A good strategy might be to go ahead and (re)design the index page of a site for them, and then send them an email/give them a flier containing a screenshot, and say "look what you can have." I need business cards, and maybe another domain/host. Heehee, I'm excited. As far as marketing goes, of course I refuse to go the spam route. But fliers on bulletin boards, stickers, and word of mouth might be good. Also, I really will have to talk to my stepbrother.
We'll see how things go, eh? Inspiration comes and goes, of course.
Now, it begins. Well, not quite. At some point.
I have a fever. I don't know where or how I got it. I didn't sleep well at all last night, and that might have something to do with it. I don't know where I might find a thermometer, or I'd check my temperature. I bet it's around 99F or so.
It's pretty bizarre, because I don't feel sick in the slightest, otherwise. By that, I mean I don't have any cold or flu-like symptoms. I just have a fever and a headache. Maybe it's some horrible disease.
I sent a phony letter to my favorite ex-employers, at The Art Store, Berkeley, asking for a reference. I pretended I was some IT manager who was deliberating on whether or not to hire me, and required the help of The Art Store, Mr. _____'s former employer with which he doubtlessly has good relations, to arrive at his decision.
The phantom is, according to his letter, the head of IT at arbornet.org, which is a nonprofit UNIX user group (true). I don't know how the actual committee or whatever that heads arbornet.org would feel about me making the free account under a fake name and then mailing people from their system, pretending to be their IT director. Probably they wouldn't like it.
Arbornet.org is actually totally bizarre. Accounts are free, and the community there is almost completely deserted. Apparently, it's the oldest public accesss UNIX system on the internet. The scripting capabilities are fairly liberal, especially for users who haven't provided any identification other than their IP addresses.
For instance, this script works perfectly fine:
i = 1 while I > 0 do echo | mail -s "hello :)" user@email.com i = I + 1
Variable I is set to the value of 1. While I is greater than 0, go send an email to user@email.com. Then, add 1 to the value of I (which starts off as 1). Then, go back to the beginning, and check to see if I is greater than 0. Sure enough, it is. So, go ahead and mail again. Etc.
It's an infinite loop ("i" will always be greater than 0), and depending on how smart the recipient's mail servers are, will fill their mailboxes to the brim in a little while. I tested the script out on a junk hotmail account, but hotmail knows better than to allow more than 10 or so identical emails into a user's inbox. But, the mechanism certainly worked on my end.
Of course, I did this from arbornet.org, and the consequences were that the account I did it from was immediately deleted. I've tried it again, and the account from which one I performing mischief was again deleted. This is really inconsequential, since new accounts at arbornet are free, and carry with them enough scripting capability to pull this off.
I suppose arbornet.org could eventually IP-ban you. But anyway, it's a good place to do dirty work, including sending letters asking for a reference, hoping to publish the scathing response along with the requesting letter. Unfortunately, sorel (the general manager at The Art Store) hasn't responded yet, and I fear she won't. Ian will give it a few more days, though, before he gives up on getting a response.
[11:21] me: but your ea girl [11:21] me: you can get sex no matter what [11:21] me: a girl who likes sex is in a much better position than a guy who does [11:21] me: :/ [11:22] me: it's upsetting [11:22] me: to see guys who can just get girls [11:22] me: :p [11:22] me: but girls dont have to make any effort [11:22] me: they never get left out, unless they are hideously deformed [11:22] me: so, the upshot is that people like me get left behind [11:22] me: and people like mike [11:22] me: etc [11:23] me: and then we go on killing sprees, and people wonder why :D [11:25] me: I guess what upsets mike-and-me-like creatures is that people who can get it take if for granted [11:25] me: and assume that its par for the course [11:25] me: whereas they should be grateful [11:25] someone: jay just called ;x [11:25] me: because there are a lot of people who cant
The powerful man and the beautiful woman are always going to be at the top of the food chain. You won't find examples of an ugly woman dating a powerful man, or an impotent man dating a beautiful woman. It just doesn't happen.
I think women tend to have more sex partners than men. This makes sense, evolutionarily (if that's a word). Many men and one woman increases the chances of that woman getting pregnant, and then she can pick and choose from her partners which one she wants to raise the baby, claiming that it's his.
The four components to life are: romance, work, money and fat. Money and fat go together almost in exact parallel. You gradually save up money, you gradually lose weight. Controlling both takes some self-discipline. There are rewards associated with both. They're intimately connected in that if you lose weight, you save money, and vice versa (no food to buy, no medical problems to pay for). Both are centered around accumulation.
On the other hand, we have romance and work. Applying for jobs is almost exactly like finding a girl. Dates are like job interviews. Resumes are like personal ads. Holding onto a relationship is like holding a job. And, of course, having and holding a job is a prerequisite for having any normal partner. Both are centered around self-presentation and willingness to perform.
So, we have the portrait of success: rich, thin, has a girl/boyfriend, and has a job. You know what they say: "You can never be too thin or too rich."
We also have the portrait of failure: poor, fat, no gf/bf, and no job. Of course there are grey areas, like sort of poor, sort of fat, a crappy gf (like a crappy job), etc. But, who give a shit? I just find it amazing that the parallels between saving money and losing weight, and romance and jobs, are so striking. Think about it for a little bit and I'm sure you'll agree, if my examples weren't comprehensive enough.
A person's marketing output is inversly proportional to his or her creative output. This is why artists, writers, musicians, etc tend to mope around sitting on their body of work, whereas people who have lots of social ability and self-esteem get excited about this body of work, and know how to get it out there. This is how it's always been, and is why writers need agents.
If I were of a cynical bent (ha), I would say that the marketing people see this brillian creative spark, and want a piece of it for themselves -- the businessman sees in the artist a quality that s/he would like to have, so the next best thing is to try and claim some credit for the creative output by seizing it and wringing it through the gears of capitalism and adversary, which the artist is so unable to deal with.
And really, you won't find too many people who will say or who genuinely believe that, say, a writer's agent is more important, or even anywhere near as important, as the writer him or herself. But it's unfortunately a relationship that has existed for a very long time.
Every once and a while, you find an artist who can market himself, or a businessman with some creative talent. But it's pretty rare. Of course, these are the people who are really succcessful, which probably explains why there are relatively few suceesful people in the world, relatively speaking, of course.
I've heard a number of times something like this: "if I had your talent, I would have taken over the world by now." this is illustrative of the central problem: people with talent are very unlikely to want to take over the world, or even go to the phone and call an agent.
Of course, the agent will make more than the artist, because this inherent aggression, pusbiness and social ability that makes the agent a successful representative of an artist also makes him successful at salary-negotiation. This has been going on as long as the human race has existed, so there aren't really any negotiations left to be done. It's par for the course now.
If the artist, writer, or musician were given more financial motivation to produce his craft, then I think he would. Ie, he'd be more likely to market himself, and get his stuff out there, and blah blah, if the picture weren't so bleak to begin with. Creative output is really a curse -- it doesn't make you happy, it doesn't make you money. All it does is "enrich society" after you're dead, and make a lot of agents rich beforehand.
Society isn't set up to reward the artist of any kind, ergo we don't have a whole lot of them, because it's a lot more pleasant to make money than it is to make things. Well, that's arguable, and the grass is always greener on the other side, as they say.
But it'd be nice if society better rewarded creative output, which it purports to intensly cherish, and deems essential. I can only reach the conclusion that art isn't all that important, that people don't, and shouldn't, care about it. We're always being told that art is wonderful and important and that we should look at it and treat it with some kind of reverence and awe, but has anyone asked why?
I have a feeling a lot of people are told that they should appreciate art, but don't, really. Or, the art that they appreciate is sneered at and relegated to the category of "non-art" by art snobs. The funny thing is that all of these art snobs went to art school, and took art theory, etc etc. They learned that everything is art, and that the reason a rauschenburg combine is ascribed more aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual value than some little kid's drawing has purely to do with money.
They learned that there's nothing inherently superior to a dada-fluxus-blah blah-whatever installation over a half-eaten bowl of cereal sitting on the counter. They know this, but instead of sharing it, they celebrate it amongst themselves and congratulate each other on their superiority to the rest of the world. And maybe this is because "regular" people just won't get it, and that it's a hopeless cause.
But art theory hasn't really been made available for the public, and is codified in wealthy academia and urban circles. It's a product of the cultural superiority that this super-advanced art theory purports to deconstruct.
But I guess I've harped on the inconsistency enough, and it's not going to do any good to harp on it some more. Artists know that their culture sucks, and that they're a bunch of hypocrits, etc. Of course, they always think "yeah, it's all of those other artist. I hate artists," and then go off to some graduate school performance or installation opening.
Every once and a while, you'll find some artist who tells you, "the underclass are ignored in the art world," and he makes some series of photographs of blue collar schmoes with half-eaten big macs or something (i saw an exhibit like this in the detroit museum, but I'm sure there are more). So, the big mac eaters are put under a microscope, and the art circles can peer at them and think about them, and think "wow, yeah....that's an interesting point."
Of course this is objectionable because it's showcasing the lowly for the elite, like putting on a clown show, or throwing rotten fruit at a peasant in a chair above a tub of water. The big mac-eaters go on with their lives, while the artists watch and are fascinated -- the observer who doesn't do anything to help, like a cameraman filming a drowning child.
People know this -- they know that artists are ea bunch of assholes. This is not a secret. But within all of this art theory that contains some pretty brilliant revelations and that shares all sorts of crossover with postmodern and eastern thought, and might be really, really important.
The crux of art theory, as I see it, can be illustrated with something like our half-eaten cereal bowl. I'll move to a pile of rags and old CDs, and I'll make it quick because I'm damned tired of writing. This pile of rags and CDs has visual attributes, has a structure, a shape and a form. So does this botero sculpture. What makes them different?
Nothing. They're the same thing. You can choose to look at everything as if it were "art" -- the way you're supposed to approach things in a gallery. And then we can take this fact that "there is really no difference between a pile of crap on the ground and a work of art in the wall" to infer that there's really not a difference between thig thinga dn that thing, and those things don't exist as discreet categories in the first place, and that everything is one, and that time doesnt exist, and blah blah, and that the universe is infinitely simple.
Art theory in a nutshell.
Except: "what if there really is an objective sense of beauty?" and I think that there might be, because there are some absolutes. Like, we don't like rotten and decaying meat, because it kills us. We like young women because they're fertile, and we can make more of the species. I dunno about facial beauty -- someone has said something about certain "beautiful" facial traits being linked to estrogen production, but I don't know if that's a load of shit or not.
Anyway, there are some absolutes, like being nice to each other and competition and blah blah, if you take "staying alive and reproducing" to be axiomatic. If it is, and our existence is the "point,"
Except none of this exists. The way out of the categories is through creativity, through avoiding templates or stereotypes. Ie, an unwillingness to name something as "bad" or "good" or "american" or whatever, because properties should be analyzed more and more closely, and just keep on analyzing these properties further and further on down the line, and it never stops -- you just keep on taking closer and closer looks, because it's hard to get it all at once. Getting it all at once would be Enlightenment, and that hasn't happened to anyone, not even the buddha.
But we can try for understanding the One, which is fine. Or, we can understand the parts of One, which is also fine. But every part can be broken down into infinite other parts, each of which can be similarly "tree'ed". This, btw, is an example of the discreet approach vs. the continuity approach.
So this is how art theory relates to my philosopphical mumbo-jumbo: art theory is all about confounding categories. Blah blah.
How does art theory relate to everything being an illusion and the entire universe existing in one's own mind? To one's mind being the entire universe, and the consciousness that we feel as being the great consciousness of everything, ie, god? How does art theory relate to our being god? I guess it's a stepping stone in the right direction, since it's about category-blurring, which is one of the first steps to divine revelation, such as the one that I've had. Heehee. Really, I'm totally full of shit and should shut up, before it's too late.
I really like this new policy of totally not giving a crap what I write down.