My Generation

Side note: If the reader is a connoisseur of herbal smoking supplements, the reader is encouraged to purchase Dragonfly brand cigarette papers, strongly flavored and factory-sealed for freshness. Reasonably wide and they burn well.

I wonder how much the world changes from generation to generation. I keep thinking, "man, kids my age are gonna be running the world soon and we're all fucking morons. What's gonna happen to the world?" As it turns out, everyone before me has probably asked the same question - as will people after me.

Has the world ever changed dramatically because of the beliefs of the people living in it? I mean, would people from 150 years ago come here and tell us that our priorities are all wrong? Does anything EVER change, and if it does, how significant is it? Is change necessarily bad? Think: What if EVERY generation before mine has "ruined" the world in the eyes of their ancestors, and yet, things now are still pretty chill.

I just wonder what the world will be like in 30-40 years. Kids my age, we grew up (most importantly) with the internet. Think about the implications of that. We grew up with fucking YouTube. We grew up with MySpace and Facebook and American-fucking-Idol and Tivo and all sorts of shit that focuses on one thing: YOU. Reality TV these days involves the audience. MySpace is all about self-indulgence, no matter what anyone says. Facebook has its practical uses, but it's gonna go the way of MySpace sooner or later. YouTube is all user-generated. We are going to see the realization of Warhol's dream; We will all be famous for fifteen minutes.

On the internet.

Think, though - will we be prepared to deal with children? We're so self-absorbed. How can we possibly handle being responsible for another person? What will OUR kids turn out like? Find out next, on...

blast from the past

Man, nothing like working with a kitchen. If you want to have suicidal thoughts or become a racist, work at a restaurant. Jesus.

I found an old hard drive in my PS2 today, from 2003-2004. It has been described as "something with long forgotten nostalgia inducing porn collections," which is pretty much spot on. Why didn't anyone tell me I looked like such a fuckass? Anyway, the best of what I found in My Documents is now uploaded. Included: A chatlog from some guy who took a bunch of benadryl and forgot who he was, a myspace quiz I filled out a few years ago, old pictures, instructions on how to make a pipe out of things you can shoplift from Lowe's, a poem I wrote for Geo class, and the obituary of a girl I knew who shot herself! Enjoy!

The only constant...

I want to start a clothing company called Norma Jeans, your friendly neighborhood fashion boutique for the trendy and retarded. I'll sell jean skirts for guys (because girlpants are SO 2003), bandannas (specially cut to accommodate your back pocket or to be wrapped around your knee), and those temporary tattoos of wrist-slashes I've always been talking about.

I have a job now, and I work more-or-less full time, from five to midnight. I never see the sun -=[ It's all chill though, I'm (supposedly) making mad cash, which is nice. I'm also living after midnight, which is annoying. So that's why I'm never around, in case you were wondering. (You weren't.)

Friday was probably one of the weirdest nights of my life, partly because I went to a show at the hangout and it was fucking lame. I saw a kid with shaved legs wearing boyshorts. I saw a bunch of people, retardedly dressed, trying to pretend they're so into music when half of them didn't even pay to go in; They stood outside, earning precious scene points. A few kids asked me to buy cigarettes. I told one kid he loved pole, and got called an asshole for doing so. Seriously though - Was I like this when I went to shows?

I always used to be afraid that some day, I'd be "too old" or whatever to keep hanging out with my friends at all-ages punk shows. As it turns out, though, I guess I'm growing out of it. I guess the bar band scene is my new best friend. It just seems so stupid now to go to shows and stand around in girlpants, watching people argue about being straightedge or trying to impress everyone with their sweet moshing skills or smoking a bunch of cigarettes to seem cool (funny how you can tell these kids haven't been smoking long, funny how you can tell most kids ARE doing it to be cool.) or whatever other bullshit we used to do.

I mean, it's the same thing, go hang out with your friends at the show, see some rad bands, whatever. I think everything has this sort of artificial finish to it now. Everyone wants to "be scene" and take retarded myspace pictures and make out with boys because they're so unique and different and in touch with their feminine side. I thought music was all about, "fuck everyone, I'm gonna be myself and hang out with people who appreciate that" and not "Man, I'd sure like to be a scene kid, how can I be more emo?"

It's funny, 'cus I used to be the same way, I guess. Everyone wants to try to be something, to see what fits. The problem is, you can't find out who you are by trial and error. Or you can. I dunno. It seems like a lot of people spend High School (myself included, though everyone's mileage varies here) thinking that if they can "be" a certain image, then they'll find their place. I think younger people have this goal as to who they want to be, and they try to meet that, but as we get older, we start to see everything coming together. We start to see who we were all along - and that we don't need to be anything else.

I think MySpace is interesting because it lets people show you how they see themselves. It's always weird when there's a huge difference between how they see themselves and how you see them. Maybe you'll see some poetry in someone's blog, someone you thought was just another ditzy highschool kid. You'd think, "Holy shit, this is decent, I should give so-and-so more credit." Or sometimes you'll see someone's About Me and how they're describing themselves and think, "Fuck that so much dude, you're not like that at all."

I started this post thinking about how fucking gay the scene is and wondering if it's really THAT lame, or if I just grew out of it. It's probably a combination of both. All of the same basic elements are there, it's just more artificial now than it used to be - and it WAS pretty superficial. The point, though, is that once you know yourself - when you realize what you like, how you act, how people perceive you, what you want to do with your life - you've got pretty much everything figured out. As I've said before, you find what you want to do, and you do it. If you're trying to be something else, trying to be scene or preppy or whatever, it's always gonna hold you back. But hey, when people get older, they grow out of acting like assholes*, and that's way rad.

*most of the time

drive

I can't afford to get coffee. Hell, I can't even afford to drive so I can go to Perkins and watch other people drink coffee. I have no fucking money, I have no fucking job. I dick around all day doing nothing. Am I becoming worthless?

See, one time I got really fucked up on mushrooms and learned that everything in this world bleeds. Not blood, literally, but life. All of our accomplishments leave a mark. Maybe you'll go to school, borrow some money, work your ass off and start a company like Honda or Microsoft that everyone knows, something that changes the world. Maybe you'll idly scratch a witty rhyme into a bathroom stall while you're waiting for your shift to start at Macy's. Some things you do will live on for ages, maybe physically, maybe only in people's minds. Some things, like a smile at a girl on a bus, will only be remembered for a few minutes (hopefully days) before they're gone and forgotten.

I hope that when we die, we don't go to heaven or hell. I hope that we just wander around an endless plain, sharing our stories, experiences, knowledge, with the trillions of people we never had the (mis)fortune of meeting in life. I hope that at least a few of my stories will be met with replies of, "Fuck, that was you?" or maybe "Oh, you're the guy that..."

This is how I measure my worth: Am I the best at what I do? Will I be remembered? Will I live on? Will I have something to say if I'm asked what I did in my life? I go out at night hoping that I'll walk away with some happy memories, hoping that I've played a part in someone else having a good time, the kind they'll remember forever. I'm still in school because I'm hoping that someday, I'll have the opportunity to find some amazing job doing something I love.

But what about now? I'm afraid of being inside my house. I keep wanting to go out with my friends and dick around. Sure, good memories and all, but there's only so much of that that I could call "productive." The reason I don't spend more time at home is that I'm afraid of missing out on good times, like my life is worth less if I'm not around for a really funny joke someone tells.

I guess my problem is that I need to balance my fucking time a little, and maybe grow the fuck up. As it stands now, I'll spend an ENTIRE day getting fucked up and then dicking around at the mall or whatever, sitting around with my friends watching TV, or wandering around a forest. Yeah, it's fun and all (and watching the sunset over Lake Erie while you're smoking some of the world's finest green is an unparalleled experience), but I think a day at the gym followed by a night on the town is a better investment of my time. Less fucked, more up.

All things in moderation, I guess.