two stories

A Night Ride, I

A few years ago I would ride my old bike to my friend's house and back after my night classes. I would get home at 10, and ride north on Santa Anita. Since the ride was around 40 minutes it gave me the perfect opportunity to check out new albums. I would get to my destination tired, grab dinner and watch bad late-night TV or good movies, talk about nothing, say a series of odd inside jokes and go home around 130 AM. Even though a few parts of the ride around the freeway were sketchy, my bike was in bad enough condition to incite pity from the vilest of characters. But I never took the wash home, as that would be asking for trouble.

On this particular night, my bike had been squeaking more than usual. The chain had fallen off on the previous ride and had been making noises since. Despite this I felt confident, I had a new Naked City album whose name I cannot remember, "In the court of the Crimson King," and Wilco's "Being There." For the entire ride, I was alone with the early October wind.

I listened to half of "Being There" on the ride north so it followed logically that I listened to King Crimson on the way back..


---

Brown Noise

On my usual filing route I take the subway Downtown and then back to the office. I enjoy the metro as much as anyone else--I get to my destination quickly and I can usually listen to music, read or play a game on my phone while being transported. Common sense encouraged  me to remain vigilant through the monotony despite the relative safety of the mechanocaverns. I am thankful for this shred of common sense.
I entered the rail car, second or third to the last on my way back. I sat and read "White Noise." Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a young guy, no older than 18, wearing an oversized brown hoodie. Before a minute had passed I was almost certain he was on a stimulant: the telltale tweaks told me everything I needed to know. I tried keeping an eye on him even if he was behind me. At every stop he would walk to the opposite exit of the car jitter and mutter to himself, cover his face completely with his hood and hold his head as if he were trying to comfort himself.  At the W&V stop, he walked back to my natural line of sight. He repeated his ritual again, expect this time he pulled a metal object out of his backpack; I could tell because he clanked it against a railing as he was pulling it out. At W&N, the nest stop, he walked towards the front again. As he walked past me this time I caught his scent: dirt, sweat and unwashed clothes, much like a homeless person but not quite as pungent.

I turned my head slightly and caught the sight of the object in his hand--before I could make out what it was a guy (holding out a skateboard in front of himself, as if ready to strike or defend himself) said in a loud and clear voice: Why do you have a knife, my boy? He quickly replied, in an aggressive tone peculiar to Angelino schoolchildren: Because, in case anyone gets around me. I confirmed that not only was this armed individual intoxicated but he was upset and scared. The guy holding the skateboard said: You should get off the train. The vagrant replied quickly once again: That's the point. The two of them exited the subway, but on a twist to his routine, the knife wielder re-entered through the rear doors. He passed by me once again. I had sat through this dialogue in a shock;--fear isn't the right word, but I was in a heightened state of alarm. Other people had already left, but I stayed inside expecting him to stay at the station. The automated voice began to speak: PLEASE CLEAR THE EXITS, THE DOORS ARE CLOSING.


--

A Night Ride, II

Things took a turn for the macabre when I began my homeward playlist with Naked City. About 10 minutes into the ride, still well into the suburbs, I decided to switch over the "In the court" to lighten the mood of the ride.

Perhaps it was the name of the band, the music I was listening to before it, the fact that I was out sometime after 2 AM on a less-than-reliable bike without lights; but I could not get myself to listen to that album. Fear isn't the right word, but I was in a heightened state of alarm. I heard the entirety of "Being There" that night. Needless to say, I never listened to "In the court of the Crimson King" entirely.

An observation

Outside of more experimental series like "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff" (4/5 stars if viewed in chronological order) the authors behind the popular webcomics generally gravitate towards the style of established newspaper comic-strip authors over time: the art becomes more polished through practice or production values, the characters develop while storylines and sometimes arcs are created. After reading enough strips one begins to see the archetypes in their plots just as one would on TV shows or movies despite being broadcast through a medium where originality is still expected. To conclude, both casual surfers and expert web users are expected to accept their existence as these as they are generally short, at best memorable and easily ignored.

This leads to the question: Why would someone begin spending time maintaining and updating a blog dedicated  solely to mocking a webcomic of "sarcasm, math and language?" Over 700 entries and 3+ years of hate.

Crudely photoshopped parody 

(not of webcomic but related image based joke; see "meme.")

Granted, it is difficult for one not to laugh periodically at a crudely photoshopped parody of another popular webcomic* infamous for overly dramatic story arcs--clever mockery of these types of publications can generate the same type of comedy that initially draws in readers. Nevertheless, even for those with an accepting sense of humor these acts of expression seem more like an unhealthy obsessive relationship than a serious attempt at comedy.


Such is life in The Zone.

__
Footnotes:
Meme: Inside, recurring joke. It is unknown whether the Internet noun stems from the French word "même" meaning same, or the English with Greek roots term "meme" created in 1976 meaning a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes. It seems that the latter is possible, however the first pronunciation is superior and as the word is not definitely defined, the author proposes the French pronunciation is kept.
*B^U

"And that's disturbing in its own right"

A year, two months and 28 days later

1) How common is it for one to make oneself laugh often and/or greatly enjoy one's jokes?

More than a few days after that

A) On a /lit/ thread on 4 leaf, an Anonymous poster stated that "The Brothers Karamazov" held all of life's answers within it. Three hundred and some odd pages later and not a single mention of the forty second number. One would be advised to read the book carefully and review dissections on the piece--

Sugarfoot

Things to do while unemployed in the summer:
1) Take up biking
2) Find animal guide
3) Ask for a bus pass in place of internship and receive background check
4) Telling friends we're going for sure hiking tomorrow every day
5) Diversifying music collection and wikipediaing everything. I recently acquired Santana's Abraxas; after reading up on the Gnostic deity, Wikipedia took yours truly to the page of Jung's "Seven Sermons to the Dead." The thought of a brilliant, renowned psychologist turning his intellect towards the understanding of mysticism, the soul and spirituality kills me. I refuse to believe he was simply losing grip with reality. His writing suggests he was still lucid--the material is concise and accessible considering it is dealing with an esoteric subject:

"Sermo VII

Yet when night was come the dead again approached with lamentable mien and said: There is yet one matter we forgot to mention. Teach us about man.

Man is a gateway, through which from the outer world of gods, daemons, and souls ye pass into the inner world; out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and transitory is man. Already is he behind you, and once again ye find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller or innermost infinity. At immeasurable distance standeth one single Star in the zenith.

This is the one god of this one man. This is his world, his pleroma, his divinity."

  

It is clear that Jung's bright mind was experiencing the extraordinary. The question remains: was he describing his loss of sanity or a divine input when he wrote The Red Book and the Seven Sermons to the Dead? "[T]here are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life."

6) Read
7) Basketball every day
8) Break computer;
9) Learn how to use coffee machine
10) Run on treadmill, watch COPS 

altered states

Descent 

Ascent 

 

Dissent

ʎʇıɔ ןɐuoıʇɐuɹǝʇuı ǝɥʇ

soן

ange

sǝן

¡Sufre... mamón!

Hearing this song on the radio nostalgia bombed me right to the eponymous debut album from the popular 1980's band Hombres G. Those already was already familiar with Devuelveme a mi chica will be pleased with the rest of the album.  The cool, lighthearted lyrics of David Summers coupled with the occasional rock n' roll sound and 80's feel present throughout rest of the album make it an enjoyable listen.

I got that and Los Prisioneros' Corazones (of Tren al Sur fame.)