july

Dear America,

We haven't chatted in a while and I just wanted to say hi. I've been thinking about you because it's your birthday. I know we've had our differences in the past, because sometimes you're incredibly stupid (Blackwater, WMDs, 2000-2008, THE CURRENT OIL SPILL AND THE INABILITY TO DEAL WITH IT, Us Weekly culture, Leonard Peltier, SARAH PALIN, good christ I could go on forever).

But. Since we've separated, I've learned that you do have a few things going for you. Clean water from the faucet is nice. And, um, the idea of "democracy" is also pretty cool, if it's used correctly and effectively, ie to actually give power to the people.

I've always thought, though, that the greatest thing America has ever produced is its dissidents. The true mark of an evolved society is letting its citizens, or those a nation ostensibly exists for, change it and improve it. Anyone who takes the time to tell America how bad it's fucking up does so only because they believe it could do so much better. Abbie Hoffman, Hunter S. Thompson, et al believed that America could be the world's freest democracy, providing its citizens with the most liberties, and were only disappointed that their country was falling so short of its defined goals. Since being away, I guess I've realized the fact that I'm allowed to say "America, you're really fucking up" is pretty awesome, although I obviously wish I didn't have to say that at all. How great would it be to say "I love America! We have clean energy, awesome health care and a great education system! There's no discrimination or gun violence, and we're not sending (poor) 19 year olds to the other side of the world to die. We don't only elect fat, rich, old, racist white men to office, and instead we have elected officials of every race, gender and economic background to serve the interests of the people. Americans enjoy life and there's a high value placed on the arts. WE DON'T IMPOSE SEXIST BELIEFS ON WOMEN AND ASSUME OWNERSHIP OVER THEIR BODIES. America doesn't really subscribe to a religious doctrine and people are pretty much allowed to do what they want as far as that's concerned. America doesn't sell a lot of useless shit because we know that doesn't provide happiness. There is no show called 'Two And A Half Men' and people don't watch that much TV anyway, they spend a lot of time with their friends instead."

Today, we should all remember that America was founded by dissidents who didn't feel like taking shit from anyone because they wanted to have power over their own individual lives (people who quote the constitution these days seem to be only balding white dudes trying their hardest to make sure poor/brown people don't have health care/citizenship so I'll stop short of that).

Shouldn't the goal of any nation in the modern world be to provide it's citizens with the highest quality of life possible? And I'm not talking about cheap shit from Wal-Mart that will make your life easier. Quality of life can be truly determined by health, personal freedoms and yes, the ability toward the pursuit of happiness.

On my birthday, I like to think about what I could do better in the coming year; how I could be a better friend, sister, daughter, person. So America, on your birthday, put down the credit card, have a beer, appreciate what you have and think about how you could become the country you should be.

Love,
your friend.

PS: I just read that Obama is putting $2 Billion dollars into solar energy! Which will create jobs and help to liberate us from oil dependency. I can't think of a better birthday present.

the internet was probably just invented so people would have something to do at "work."

When I die, please DO NOT, like even THINK about EVER setting up one of those "pages" on facebook where people can comment and be like "I miss you girl... you always kept it real" and other such debasing inanities. If you let this happen, I will come back to haunt the shit out of you.

When the rights to my life story are optioned, the contract will stipulate that Will Arnett will star. Opposite Daniel Radcliffe as the (non-existent in reality) love interest. HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER SUMMER 2K47!!1111

Since I snored my way through years of church and sort of debunked the whole Adam and Eve ruse as complete bullshit by age seven because where did the dinosaurs fit in there?, I've always thought religion was for people who weren't smart enough (yeah, I'm a douche, whatevs) to stare the cold truth of human existence in the face-- that we don't matter, that we'll die soon and there is no eternal pool party waiting for us at the end, no matter what Carrie Underwood or whatever says. However, that being said, if I had to choose a religion it would definitely be Buddhism, as it takes all the good parts of religion, e.g. spritual and moral guidance, a reason for living, without all of the YOU CAN'Ts that make modern American Christianity seem like a boring, excruciating anger/hate-fest and about as much fun as a rectal exam. Most importantly, no wars were ever waged in Buddha's name.

Good thing America produces a lot of glossy high-fructose treats (Pixar, Gaga etc) to export to the rest of the world so they don't really notice that we're robbing them of autonomy and blowing up shit all the time.
AMERICA: Hey, don't pay attention to the IMF! Watch this music video featuring writhing naked women!
"DEVELOPING" NATION: America is so cool! Hey, why has all the independent industry in my country been replaced by multi-nationals? Why do we owe the World Bank millions of dollars in interest that we'll never be able to pay back, on a loan we were forced to take out?
AMERICA: Hey, did you know that sexy people like us buy stuff all the time? Have some!
"DEVELOPING" NATION: Wait, um, it would be cool to have some accessible clean drinking water....
AMERICA: Buy some Coke! Or do you want Sprite?



*all this having been said, I do enjoy clean drinking water. Thank you America.

America, from elsewhere

Britain's humourous take on "Life in America After the Crash!!!!!!111" from the BBC's Newsnight:

"Buddy can you spare a dime", "Dancing in the dark", "Life is just a bowl of cherries", all phrases that were coined during the Great Depression and have remained in the American lexicon [thought the first was a Marvin Gaye song, the second was Bruce, and the third-- uuuhh Doris Day or something?].

As fixed as the haunting images of migrant families captured by Dorothea Lange's unparalleled photographs.

The Great Depression shaped modern America, literally in the great skyscrapers, and metaphorically as the Depression gave way to World War II, the Cold War, and ultimately the greed of the Gordon Gecko years. [From your ninth grade history paper.]

But has it taken this new crash to bring America to its senses?

....

We have a stellar guest list. In the studio historian Simon Schama [brilliant author of Landscape and Memory, as opposed to this guy:], writer and satirist Joe Queenan, [who is a supremely untalented hack] queen of the internet and Republican-turned-Democrat Arianna Huffington, banker Liaquat Ahamed (whose book Lords of Finance points to the actions of four bankers in the 20s as central to the crash), and the novelist Hari Kunzru.

Already in the can, Jay McInerney, [the NY "writer" who best personifies the term "yuppie" in the most derogatory sense possible] who has some extraordinary observations of his own, which he is working into a new book. Get this - he says people on the Upper East Side are pretending to have lost money through the Madoff scandal.

Meanwhile, Philip Roth speaks of this as just another dark time in a series of dark times in America.

Paul Mason has made two archive-rich films to kick off discussions. First, he asks if the 1929 crash taught Ben Bernanke and others a lesson that helped avoid a depression this time. [Ha! What an important lesson to have learned!]

And second a film on the cultural response to 1929 - the literature of Steinbeck and Henry Roth, the "talkies" which portrayed the underbelly of American life, and the state-induced saccharine of screwball comedies like Bringing up Baby.

Then we'll look at the cultural response this time around.

TV sitcoms now focus on family life again. In Hank, Kelsey Grammer is an entrepreneur who loses his job and moves to small town America [Kelsey Grammer: who says "small town America" more? And what can help understand and cope with "our" "economic strife" more effectively than a sitcom? No one and nothing, that's who.] . In the explicit Hung a teacher who is struggling to make ends meet becomes a male prostitute [male prositutes on Showtime: truly indicative of a cultural trend.]. Oliver Stone (who only last year said he couldn't imagine revisiting Wall Street) is currently making Wall Street II, with Michael Douglas reprising the role of Gordon Gecko.

And, of course, like Banquo's ghost [hey, British news and your hyper-literacy], Michael Moore has turned up with his own trumpet blast at the bankers with Capitalism, A Love Story.

The sparks will fly, so do join us live from New York at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

Do the British have a better grasp on America than Americans do?
Are they smarter than "us"?
Or are they just "jealous" that we "broke away" from them over 200 years ago and turned out to be even better at "ruining the world" than they were?
Is the BBC just a "business" trying to "increase ratings" by having "idiots" like Joe Queenan and Jay McInerney argue with each other and smart people like Arianna Huffington and Simon Schama?

Anti-American Chic

...is dead.

Well played, America.

Not bad for a capitalist democracy*.


*Oligarchy? Plutocracy? None of the above?

Semiotical Confusion

When the Toshiba (TM) LED ball dropped in New York last night, John Lennon's "Imagine" was echoing throughout the city. Almost four decades into its existence, the song sort of seems like barely a rung above the standard mindless Sad FM drivel. However, the sincere sense of humanity that's since been diluted by the song's ubiquity and commercial opportunities is laid so bare it's chilling:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

Lennon calls for the eradication of both god and country as sources of blind faith, as religion and nationalism combine for large-scale bloodshed that continues to ravage humanity. The fact that his anti-religion, anti-capitalist anthem was playing on New Years Eve in the (crumbling) financial capitol of a defiantly Christian nation that's currently waging a brutally unnecessary war in a Muslim nation is much more than enough to make Lennon roll in his grave. This is the man who returned his Medal of the British Empire to the Queen in 1969, with the explanation:

‘Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon."


The next day, at the Winter Classic, a hockey game at Chicago's Wrigley Field between the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks, both the Canadian and American national anthems were performed. The Canucks went first, while fifty service men and women gripped the enormous maple leaf flag and shook it. The crowd paid tame respect. The Americans were next, and the flag was given the same treatment. Throughout the singing of the anthem, the crowd rowdily cheered and exploded in chants of "USA" when it was all over. Such elation in the face of patriotic paraphernalia elicits in me a knee-jerk assumption that said crowd is perpetuating that tired, smug and myopic We're Better Than Them ideology, but for the first time, I had reason to wonder if the Chicago crowd was instead celebrating something to truly be proud of: that one of their own would be inaugurated into the White House in a few short weeks.

As soon as the US vs. Canada rivalry dissolved, the crowd localized its concern: how Detroit "sucks," yet the Red Wings are "the only thing the city has going," since the big three have fallen while the rest of the country rubbernecks at the bloody disaster without bothering to feign sympathy. People's ability, eagerness, to bisect the human race into as specific factions as possible never ceases to amaze. (I wonder if John Lennon was a football fan.)

Between the anthem ending and the puck dropping, loud fireworks exploded in fire balls from the ground, and I hoped that no Iraq vets were in attendance as they surely would've crawled under their seats. As two fighter jets soared overhead, I hoped that if there were any vets, that none of them pondered whether or not these military machines were fueled by Iraqi oil and that they might have died for standard celebratory pomp preceding a sporting event.

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

On November 4, I voted for you, and that night I stood with a hundred other young, well-dressed and drunk American voters and watched your acceptance speech, and the moment all felt like a good dream, that for one of the first times I can remember, it felt like the good guys had won. You, like us, seem to recognize that the system is broken, that the people elected to lead should not be nefarious and selfish but one of the people, working to serve their needs.
So now, a few weeks later, all anyone can talk about is the economy and how everything's ruined and how we should be stocking up on food and wait for the day that our money's worth nothing and take our place in the bread line.

I graduated from college in May, and learned nothing if not that every way in which the world is currently operating is wrong. So, reluctant to join this destructive "work force" that kills everyone who is in it, (I believe that I am alive and would like to stay that way) I have taken a menial position that I am much too smart for. It requires none of the skills that I have, bores me to tears and insults my dignity, but at least I'm not pushing papers for some soul-sucking corporation by and for the living dead. However, I am currently living well below the poverty line. I can barely afford to pay my bills now (although these do not even include car payments/insurance, expensive habits or health insurance) and in less than a month, my first college loan payment is due. All I want to do is work in a socially/environmentally progressive organization that is making valid steps toward effective change in the world. However, when the economy is bad, organizations like these are the first to tighten their belts, although the unsustainable, top-heavy economy itself is the reason why such organizations toward re-shaping our country and world are needed.

So let's recap. I need to join the very world I learned is wrong just to be able to pay for my having learned this. For me to do this is giving up all that I have, is cashing in my integrity and faith in the world, is relinquishing the belief that the world allows for progress and compassion and the capabilities of the human heart.I'm living in poverty because I care too much about the other people and things in this world to take a 40k/year job at a faceless corporation and actually buy some furniture and health insurance. Apparently the abilities of thinking and feeling have no place in the "real world," in America, but that's all I know how to do. America is currently crushing its own children; we are buckling under the weight of its reckless corporate lust, and we are scared it does not care about us, that it will hear our screams, shrug its shoulders and leave us for dead.

So, Mr. Obama, I, and millions of others like me, gave you our vote and our faith. How will you save us?

Sincerely,

America's Urban 20-Somethings

Answers to the End of the World: PART 1

Yu Hong, Witnesses of the Rise, 2000


In celebration of Blogtrack's first birthday, I'm answering questions sent in by loyal readers with a high tolerance for douchery. For past month, the questions and comments have rolled in, and they'll be addressed in this exclusive two-part special.
I'd also like to thank those without whom this blog never would have made it into virtual reality:
Kelly, who urged me to further extrapolate on my disturbing views of the world for her enjoyment, and my mom, who, upon realizing she gave birth to a loud-mouthed megalomaniac, suggested a blog as a proper receptacle for my gratuitous unfounded opinions. Here's thanking her and hoping that she doesn't read this.

And now, the answers to a nation's most pressing questions.

does every artist living in a post-9/11 world have to acknowledge/understand 9/11 in their art?
"Post-9/11 world" means post-American security world, or post-American as the most popular kid in the class world. Some of the other kids apparently hate us, and others feel bad for us, and others don't care. If anything, we (Americans) are a little less sure of our place in the world, our place in America and even if our government is actively hostile toward us. 9/11 neatly bisected the country into opposite sides, so we're told, and although we complain about it, we actually love it. Can flip on the TV and either feel like Jon Stewart of O'Reilly gets us. Everything we do is a political statement. As people in their early 20s, we can can eat meat, get married or drive a car or not, and either choice is probably an indicator of how we vote.
I think acknowledging or understanding 9/11 in one's art is inevitable, as our entire country, and our entire world is now directly or indirectly defined by that event.

what's the deal with sleeping around?
Ahem. Certainly not something I know much about. But: when there are no rules, no one wins. So why does it seem like people still lose?
On the other hand, why the hell not? We're all just people, and we all want the same thing. Someone very wise once said "it's all about communication." Hurt feelings are not a good idea. ahem.

if i told you i liked electronica and folk music, what face-melting tracks would you put on my mix-tape?
"Sweet Love For Planet Earth" by the Fuck Buttons followed by "The Weight", "Carey" by Joni Mitchell and "Boyz" by MIA, "Loud Pipes" by Ratatat, "Helpless", "Baby's On Fire" by Brian Eno and "I'm Sensitive by Jewel." And that's just side A.
Your pants will be off before that tape comes close to flipping. And Neil Young protects against hurt feelings.

how the fuck are you pulling off that denim vest?
Stephen Hawking couldn't begin to guess.
Seriously.
But here's a hint: I apply it every morning with sweat from the back of Bruce Springsteen's neck, straight from the back of that '68 Chevy rolling down those hot New Jersey nights circa the Nixon administration.

is obama the man we've been waiting for? (and what do you think about the slew of hollywood movies coming out about superheroes that are actually watchable?)
I like this question, because, yes, I really do think he is what be have been waiting for because we truly believe he is. I haven't seen the country this excited since the Kennedys were alive and running. We all know that he won't save the day just by showing up, but he'll be the first president chosen by a new America. I think the blood of the America that quietly but truly cares about things, or desperately and angrily wants to see change, has been boiling long enough that it will win this election. We are sick of war and money, and know we have enough to enjoy life and want to, and that's what we believe Obama will let us do.
As far as superhero movies that are watchable.... The Dark Knight filled my quota for probably the rest of my life. I'd like to see more original ideas on the screen, smaller movies that respond to the world in it's current state rather than some re-heated idea by Hollywood from some white guy post-WWII. I really liked Tropic Thunder, but there was nothing near ANY sort of role for a woman, perhaps besides Tom Cruise's assistant who appeared for almost three seconds. For such a slyly intriguing film that attempts to serve Hollywood's own embarrassing tendencies back to it, it would have been nice to expose the sexism synonymous with Major Motion Pictures (unless Ben Stiller is ahead of the curve and purposefully excluded females from the film to make just that point and to see who would notice. Might be giving him too much credit, but I never would've thought he'd pull off a scathing meta-orgy of Hollywoodian ridiculosity ). I realize that some films are unavoidably male-centric, but the willingness with which we accept this is pretty startling.
Related: Barack is Harvey Dent. Obviously.

olympics: douchey excuse for hyperconsumption/NBC to jerk itself off on pro-america slobber OR a troubled world being united through athletic prowess/forced to accept china's fucked-upness as our collective capitalist creation and maybe an opportunity to rearrange our priorities?
The world is too small for the Olympics now. It's like shaking hands every so often with the people you share a house with. It's like we used to all be neighbors who got together once a month but now we're sharing in a living room and getting sick of looking at each other's faces. America and China both think the other one spends too much time in the bathroom and each thinks the other is using their expensive lotion.
It would nice if the Olympics were an opportunity to get together with your family in a respectful way and define what you are, what you're not, and how you can be a better person, but like most families, everyone just wants to show everyone else up. Conceptually, on a wide scale, the Olympics fall short of achieving any sense of global unity and understanding. We're all too happy to go to our rooms at the end of the day and knock on each other's door when we need to borrow a sweater.
And christ, the triumph of the American spirit is any advertisers wet dream. Global unity is conveniently sponsored by Visa while we celebrate universal triumph in a country that's killing its minorities and protesters? I think skeptics are justified and cynics are vindicated in this case.

...and what's the deal with china?
Contemporary chinese art at SFMOMA! Like that one artist who said: "Buddhism is a good dream, but it's just a dream." And the curator who wrote: "In modern China, young women are nothing more than tourists in their own dreams." IE: THIS (globalization, a nation that's sold it's soul for a flat screen and a spot at America's dinner table of excess and doom) is a bad idea!
Now we know that Tinanmen Square is a long national nightmare that no one can wake up from. There seems to be more class disparity than we can ever imagine: part of the country is turning their kids into the world's best divers, some of them are CEOs, and the rest are either being displaced by the government for damns and mines or making our electronics. Maybe they'll have a French Revolution-style uprising in a few years: the proletariat versus the ruling class. Either way, it's obvious they can't power the train they're fueling with myopic blend of capitalism and oppression forever.

...brian eno?
Genius. Friends with David Byrne, the one reason U2 is anything more than Modern English or Bow Wow Wow. Someone can that man's DNA. It's worth everything.

when can we get a fucking coffee machine?
GOOD GOD NOT SOON ENOUGH

Strange New Cottage in Berkeley

The other American dream:

Sun; music; children on streets begging for your salad and the cops who aren't ok with that; the middle aged in campy printed tees; two moms and their small daughter; ponytailed men in olive green with backpacks and graham greene novels; a twelve year old in a fedora, capri jeans and a fixed gear bike; a place almost european in its refusal to be die, to be sliced up and auctioned off to the lowest bidder.
The barristas are beautiful; the person making your salad has a BA in film studies and a metal band. Everyone has the Right pair of jeans. A "Barack and Roll" t-shirt might get you laid.
When New York wasn't looking, buttoning up its shirt and feeling bad about itself, the leftest of coasts was growing a beard and taking off its pants.

Death Knell (?)

Or, Adbusters, Hire Me! I wrote your hipster cover story when I was twelve.


Soulless narcissists or unwitting heirs to a dead America and enjoying the after-party?

The thesis of Adbusters' cover story is that hipsters signify the decline of Western civilization. Besides the fact that it appears they've gotten ahold of some previous publications, it's a hauntingly articulate account of the vacancy that has supposedly come to define our generation: "It's an odd dance of self-identity-- adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaim it." Douglas Haddow is upset because hipsters don't give a fuck about anything, a stance that has been well articulated in the past.

First, attacks on the hipness are no fun if they don't assess the context in which the "hipster" phenomenon has spawned. Why do urban twenty-somethings with DIY haircuts who majored in graphic design "attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties"?
Because their parents are rich and falling apart, America is rich and falling apart, and no one, least of all a bunch of twenty somethings raised on a steady diet of sex as a commodity from age four, knows how to fix anything. And why should they want to? There are lots of drugs and lots of good looking people who've yet to prove themselves boring at every party there is.

****** We have a lot of money and a lot of memory. We know what is cool, we are not cool, we want to be cool, we can buy what is cool, we will buy what is cool.

Second, another obvious justification of hating hipsters is that "they killed cool." No, they didn't. If "cool" was invented by Chuck Berry in 1949, or was it Jack Kerouac in 1947, or was it Oscar Wilde and his absinthe in 1920 or was it Manet and his anger and defiance in 1870, it's been leading up to this. Hipsters are not holding the gun, they only wandered onto the scene of the crime and stumbled over some dead bodies. If a 17 year old on E with a mohawk and vintage high tops breakdancing at a party means cool is dead, that's fine. Something else will grow out of that.
If it seems like there's nowhere else to go, its because what is cool if not "subversion of the mainstream," bucking conventional institutions (capitalism), ie wearing DIY and a fuck you, then maybe Jack Kerouac wins. We are the counterculture's wild-eyed children, millions of us, multiplying and dumb like rabbits. And yeah, a lot of what people call "hipsters" due to their leggings and eyewear are boring and stupid. Welcome to America. Thanks, mass media, for making us all hate ourselves. Now, can we all get over our eating disorders and move on? (Haddow: "the dancers are too-self aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion." The other side of that line: we are nothing, can be nothing, if not painfully self aware.)("Everyone needs to quit hating themselves. That's what needs to happen."-Kel)

Here's the answer: hipsters are an amalgamation of punks, hippies, and every other subculture that has grown out of American culture (ie smug consumerism) since the last bomb dropped in WWII. There just happen to be no more wars to fight (oh, wait, except for the ones we save for poor people. Oops.) Haddow believes that hipsters are a consumer group, not a subculture. Sure, some well-accessorized college kids are vapid idiots with an excess of personality disorder and American Apparel shirts to layer. But the term in question is also used to include those who buy vintage clothes, cut their own hair and ride bikes, i.e. chose to live outside the crushing ubiquity of the American consumer market. So the end of western civilization is progress by another name. If "hipster" can include rich cokeheads with expensive jeans, semantics is to blame for the entire issue here. Hipster can dismiss the talentless, the self-induglent, the stylish, artists and cokeheads as "hipsters" in one fell swoop. Here's the hole in that argument: some of "them" are creating valid art. If a certain pair of glasses or cut of a pair of jeans renders someone's creation irrelevant, we have to ask ourselves just who the shallow pawn in the situation is. For every company who's cashed in on our defenseless generation's style and sold it back to us, there's someone who realizes it and vows to fuck the system. Deviance and defiance are at the basis of "cool" and always will be. (Adbusters, then, is the hippest thing there is. )

Finally, if there is a generation of Americans who can do nothing but grow ironic facial hair and sleep off a hangover while hating itself, it's America's fault. Where was America, our neglectful parent, teaching us those supposedly noble lessons about... just what exactly? Should we be working for Goldman Sachs instead of going to dance parties? Should we be wearing Ralph Lauren on a yacht, living the American dream? Should we be arming ourselves against the government, starting a youth militia to re-build our failing democracy?

We have been abandoned.

We're the bitter and drunk orphans of a parent who bought us things instead of gave us direction.
All we can, should, will and want to do is spend the family fortune on our favorite habits, go to parties and try to get our rocks off.

UPDATE: this brilliant post calls bullshit on useless and lazy hipster hating.

Dispelling the Myth of the Two Americas

America is not red and blue, or black and white, but rural and urban, grass and steel.
When you pass homeless people every day on the way home from work, when city ordinances affect your daily life and your taxes are going toward a melange of things you don't support over things you need, the system becomes nefarious force working to keep you down.
But it's hard to believe in the necessity of taxes when everything that you need is already owned under your name. There are no homeless people on the dirt roads here, no college kids, no protesters, no libraries. The newspaper is distraction: local weather and the crossword sandwiched between Things Happening Very Far Away, to Other People.
It's hard, nearly impossible, to bother fighting an all-but-invisible Man when the only evidence of a country nearing self-destruction reveals itself in the dental deterioration of the meth-addicted locals. For some in rural America, the sun rises and sets on vast swaths of property maintained through very convenient loopholes in the same system seemingly hell bent on keeping those fighting to change it down.

A True Minority in the White House

Barack Obama is now officially the democratic nominee for the president of the United States, and everyone (ie the media, the republicans, the democrats, the racists, the liberals, etc, ad nauseum) is excited/pissed/hopeful that this will be an historic moment in America, that having Obama in the White House will be the end to our long national nightmare of white supremacy and all its ugly side effects.
In his speech last Tuesday night to accept the bid for president, it became clear that Obama's true novelty and uniqueness to the American presidential race lies not in his skin color but in his idealism. The man uses the word "hope" to the point of exhaustion, but B. sure has a hell of a lot of it. When was the last time a politician put his weight behind education, health care, and the environment (this man used the phrase heal the planet)?
Of course skepticism is appropriate; no one can simply step into office and hope our problems away. America is broken and whoever attempts to fix it is going to need a lot more than idealism and belief in the moral superiority of The American People™ (a theme of each presidential hopeful's campaign that remains more than a little frightening). But where else will change™ (another trademark of Obama's campaign, recently co-opted by McJowls) begin if not in the audacity of hope™ ?

Blogtrack would also like to acknowledge that the "Yes We Can" video by Will.i.am was so incredibly annoying, with its singing Scarlett Johansson, supermodels and other embarrassments to the human race, that it was thinking about rescinding any support, monetary or emotional from the Obama campaign as well as hope in humankind and America in general. However, that came out a while ago and blogtrack has since forgotten, and put faith back into Obama because what the hell else is there?

Reason for the end of the world

"...Americans are turning into annoyingly self-absorbed hypochondriacs. Why? Because they can. Go ahead and cry, says the prevailing psychological wisdom. Any trifling discomfort you might feel has been legitimized. Your pain is valid. If you think you're sick, you are."

Kalle Lasn, (Adbusters) argues in Culture Jam (Quill Books, 2000) that the world is falling apart because

1) Americans are rich, bored and empty, consuming everything in their path and treating the natural world like a minor disturbance at best and a potential mall parking lot

and

2) because everyone wants to be like Americans.

Is it too late for humans with influence to acknowledge this and collectively act to change it? Some people claim that humans are above all a self-preserving species, and we'll figure out a solution to the most massive crisis the planet has probably ever faced (worked for the Cold War, sort of. Fifty years ago, a lot of people thought we'd all be blown to bits by now). But, it doesn't help when such a small number of people control the way the entire world works.

If you're not angry/scared/outraged , you're just taking up space. In the immortal words of the Clash, "anger can be power if you know how you can use it."

Enlightenment, Enslavement, and War

In 1949, German philosopher Martin Heidegger first presented what would later become to be known as a highly influential and controversial work, a volume entitled "The Question Concerning Technology." In his opening, he states "Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral." Heidegger contended that without acknowledging the control that technology itself holds over us as humans, rather than having mastery over it, we are instead enslaved to its will. That is, for example, without questioning the means of a gun (technology) to carry out an end for the government (also technology), we are then enslaved to both.

Heidegger's contemporaries in Germany's Frankfurt school, Horkeimer and Adorno, contended that modernity, commencing with the enlightenment, enabled above all humanity's "sinking into a new kind of barbarism." Scientific and technological advancements were not used for enlightened progress as much as morphing Christianity into an anthropocentric and ethnocentric utilitarianism.

Both the concepts of technology as an enslaving device and modernity as conceiving a barbaric humanity could be considered the defining themes of modernity itself, and nowhere is this more present than in the practice of warfare. The stories of the Winter Soldiers, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, who are now telling their stories around the nation in order to rally support for Iraq Veterans Against the War lend credence to this claim. Four service people presented their testimonies to a large audience last week in Burlington, speaking with great passion, power and remorse about their experiences in Iraq, all acknowledging that they had acted immorally at the behest of the United States government. One soldier's testimony was particularly wrenching; he presented horrific images and footage to the audience as a backdrop to his acknowledgment that in Iraq, he and other young members of his unit murdered innocent humans out of aggression and boredom. The deaths of innocent Iraqis were celebrated within the unit, and often the result of contests or bets, cavalierly referred to as kills, while the murderer was congratulated.

Modern warfare is not the hand-to-hand combat that we still imagine to be "war," it is not a valiant duel or a human vs. human struggle, nor is it the heroic endeavor of the "good guys versus the bad guys," in which "We" are acting toward those holy ends of Democracy, Peace and Justice for "Them." There is no shadow of humanity left in the mechanistic destruction that is wrought at the hands of young American men fueled by a steady diet of extreme machismo and hubris, often perpetuated by their commanding officers.

Previously unimaginable destruction has been made possible due to the machinery that is the result of vision of some of the world's most skilled scientists and engineers, and previously unimaginable justification of these horrors is made possible by the vision of some of the world's most skilled religious and "patriotic" extremists.

The young soldier spoke of being turned into a killing machine, a monster, ultimately to carry out the will of the United States Government in this modern nightmare, which most people either justify or fear is a holy war. The truth is, this occupation has nothing to do with any god other than that holiest of modern deities, the American dollar. Modern war is executed with expensive mechanical technological advancements, while its human components are nothing more than an extension of their M-16s, but this war would not exist without that most significant (and destructive) of human technological advancements: capitalist imperialism.

Hundreds of years after the enlightenment, the Frankfurt school's half-century old assessment of it echoes eerily relevant. If modernity began with the physical manipulation of nature and ideological manipulation of "God's will," it will end when these two modes of destruction have mined that last of what remains of the natural and human, or that which not yet been used as a means to an end by imperialistic governments.

America, I was wrong about you: part deux

(in which the blogtrack unwittingly and regrettably advertises for loathsome causes.)




It was on thesaurus.com! So then I looked synonyms for "border" and "patrol" and found that you can also use "confine vigilance" "periphery shotgun" or "xenophobic, propagandistic waste of money."

And "mission focused"? Should've used a thesaurus and come up with a better slogan, like "I voted for Bush and all I got was this really long fence."

The Crappiest Generation: We're All We Have

Much has been made of our good-for-nothing collective lump of a useless generation; we're too obsessed with our selves/facebook/clothes/drugs/hip hop/wii to do anything significant on either side of the political fence. It's funny that the very people blaming us for sucking are the ones who caused our uselessness in the first place: our parents worked hard so we wouldn't have to. They voted for money, bought our vacations and SUVs and lack of responsibility toward anything other than ourselves. Meanwhile, they're handing us a world that's less than perfect. And by that, I mean a world in which everyone's miserable. Fifty million people don't have health care because rich people have tax breaks. A sixth of the world's population lives in poverty, and we have the audacity to consider the fact that we all can't afford $600 purses anymore cause for concern. Everyone's depressed. Two and a Half men is on TV.
While our generation was being fed a grand narrative of Manifest Destiny, capitalism and conspicuous consumption, we were also living on a steady diet of that other side of modern culture: the artists and activists who have poked holes in the (fragile) system, which counts for at least some of the hot air that's currently leaking from this over-inflated mess. Meanwhile, we're all hoping to be the next Che Dylan; someone has to liberate the masses, and good god we will not sit in a cubicle. So we sit around mulling over our own greatness/inadequacies instead, paralyzed by the state of the world (bank), and the state of the self. The only thing that gets us through is irony. This is the height of western civilization?
To survive the world our parents (and grandparents, etc ad nauseum) have built for us, our generation will have to act as the architects of a cultural sea change; the standards of imperialism, resource exploitation, and consumption of The Greatest Country in the World will become a fairy tale. A cultural upheaval of this magnitude seems daunting, as we treasure the destructive convenience that is our birthright, but it could actually be the greatest thing to happen to America and the world in general. With its position as the world's economic super power rendered null and void, the US could start to play nice by actually acting on it's promise of moral superiority, become a leader in developing alternative energies and a home to a peaceful and contented people.
It's our choice. But one day we will be running this place. We're just going to do it on our own terms.

We Barely Knew Ye

(The white and Christian children of America pray for Burberry snow boots.)

Goodbye America.
You know things are dire when Wall Street bonuses shrink and people can only afford one $600 purse a year.
Hark! A loaded broker sings: resurrection is possible.

One of the sadder celebrity deaths in recent memory: but why does it even matter? Is it because he was good looking, talented, a father? Or is it because we are a sick and deluded people, empty and believing that famous people are worth more than the rest of us? Or Them?

In other news, sociological proof that men are just as self-serving and morally depraved as we'd been told: so much for a gender-balanced utopia. Not sure if this deserves rage or pity. Discuss.

At least we still have Keith's badassedness on this cold January day.

Feliz Ano Nuevo

Photo: M. Rivlin

2008 improbably commenced with Gallo (la cerveza nacional) jubilant "Feliz Ano"s and fireworks in Guatemala City, a place surprising to anyone who thinks they know what our neighbor to the south is like; it's Belize City poor compared to Miami but Miami compared to poor Belize City.
The first of the year brought us via chicken bus to Antigua, a beautiful city full of Spanish colonial architecture, people, food and fire cracker debris from the celebrations of the previous night. The line at the ATM was long, and armed guards stood outside of it. At night, we saw two little girls ride around on their pink trikes in the park under trees lit with christmas lights. A delightful Frida Kahlo- themed restaurant (with arguably the best nachos of the trip) was full of Europeans, some drawing on eyebrows and moustaches with a burnt cork. The next day, we ducked into some art galleries, followed by massive groups of French tourists. Amongst the traditional/indigenous-themed pieces, one memorable painting featured a round-faced blonde woman with beady eyes and a double chin. The city soon disappeared under fog as we boarded an arctic overnight bus to Flores; a B slasher movie played in Spanish, and I was shaken awake by an over-zealous stewardess (bus attendant?). We finally arrived at the Belizean border in the morning, boarded another bus full of loud tourists and soon stepped out into San Ignacio, our former home that ceased to exist the second we returned. The city was not as if we had never left, but as if we had never been there; it seemed foreign and desolate under a white sky. The next day, we stared out at the city from the top of a 1500 year-old temple... and then laid by a resort pool until happy hour. Our loud neighbors at the six-dollar a night hotel were brutally American, and Jessica Simpson played on our other side; we'd traveled two-thousand miles to lie awake in a dorm.
Another dark morning; another bus ride. The 5 o'clock to Belize City was quiet and dark, then quiet and cloudy; the sun came out for a few minutes before retreating again. Caye Caulker was under a huge cloud, but Tina's Hostel has a vibes garden so all was right on the tropical island. A few games of cards and pineapple and rums later, we were talking loudly about God in front of polite Europeans, who hopefully weren't as disgusted as they should've been. Sunday night on a rainy tropical island is trivia night at the Canadian-owned sports bar, where the Red Wings/ Blackhawks game blasted from a big screen. Our partners were a young couple from Seattle, who days before had eloped in Las Vegas. One phrase sums up this pair, who did nothing less than reaffirm our faith in post-college existence: engagement puppy. The intellectual prowess of Mr. and Ms. Dreamy and four almost-college graduates led to third place in the competition, which meant $20 BZE off of our bar tab. Panty rippers, pink pussies and a huge crush on the newlyweds ensued.
Monday was finally sunny; we floated in turquoise before catching the ferry to the mainland, wondering if we'd ever be here again, as the threat of student loans and the grind loom ever nearer, as did our departing water taxi. Our bus from Belize City was filled with reggaeton and insufferable American college girls; one demanded that the Belizean man next to her move to another seat, and we imagined inflicting physical violence, or at least affecting British accents.
Our igloo on wheels pulled into Playa del Carmen at around 5 am; we stood clueless in the dark street wondering where to turn next when three muchachos approached us. They asked in Spanish if we wanted to come home with them; we laughed until they asked again, and followed Poncho, Victor and The One With Creative Facial hair back to an apartment complex a few blocks away. Before we walked through the sliding glass door, it became apparent that there were numerous bodies sprawled on few beds in the one-room apartment; sooner than we could say "Mexican sex trade" Poncho was pulling up a mattress and telling us where to sleep. I vowed not to take my eyes off of our stuff; five hours later, the room was filled with light, and our things were exactly as we'd left them. We thanked our generous freegan (?) hosts and headed through town toward the beach.
O America, when will you leave your demands, flab, haircuts at home? "Senorita! Senorita!" from a large gringa, chasing down the waitress for another bucket of beer interrupted a peaceful sleep on the beach as well as any delusions of pristinity, hell, decency, we had about this place. Round Americans rolled along the stretch of beach, cracking each other up and applying zinc oxide to their extremities. Cruise ships littered the horizon; all of the Midwest, Jersey and Alabama was in the sand. Good god. If I see another pale fleshy body with tribal tattoos... Trying to repress knowledge of the sewage content in the waves, we splashed around, remembering that it was eighty degrees, sunny, and January, and the end of our adventure was looming near.
Friends of friends met us that night for "feliz hora" at a restaurant on the main street and we contentedly savored margaritas and a song from a troubadour. It had become clear by this point that although it is in Mexico thus requiring a passport to get there, Playa del Carmen is Florida; happy tourists sipped at Starbucks and lurked in Converse and Birkenstock stores, NFL ponchos hung in windows along with the feared, the loathed, the inescapable Corona Bikini. Mariachis in traditional dress played to tourists at Italian restaurants; Baudrillard is alive and well.
All hyperreality aside, we soon found ourselves naked in deceptively shallow water feet away from a crowded outdoor nightclub, and the stars were very bright above the dark water.
After a complimentary breakfast the next morning courtesy of our quaint hostel, it was Cancun or bust. We couldn't wait to flash the world and after unsuccessfully searching for the Girls Gone Wild crew, we hopped into a cab and paid by the skin of our pesos. It had long since become painfully clear that further than 5 miles from the border, Belizean currency is worth a smirk from the banker and not much else. We were broke, tired and dirty as we checked into the most luxurious surroundings we'd had access to in what seemed like a long while. Our amazingly clean cuarto, courtesy of mi madre, came equipped with a real working shower that we had all to ourselves (!), two huge beds with clean sheets (!), a flat screen and a fridge (!!!). Cracked open our single can of frijoles, cut our tomatoes with the lid, and made the greatest comida those last few pesos could buy. Spent the afternoon lounging by the scenic pool and waiting for kind old people to buy us sundries (no such luck; but the 7-11 just stroll on the highway from the hotel had beer and candy bars), and reading Hunter S. Thompson's own Yucatan adventure circa 1970 in The Great Shark Hunt, in which his cohort bitterly complains about the development of the area by foreign (gringo) businesses. The escapade culminates with them eating copious amounts of most known recreational drugs to avoid the risk of carrying them through customs, and paranoiac hilarity ensues. Highly recommended.
The next morning we were off to the airport ourselves (sans drugs). A word of advice to all those thinking of planning a Central American adventure: leaving the countries themselves requires a great deal of money, especially if you've already spent all your cash on nachos and heady jewelry. Make sure you fly with an airline that includes such taxes ($23! US!) in the price of your flight, and you will be the envy of all your penniless comrades (Continental does this, or the guy at the ticket counter took pity on me). Also, never enter the boundaries of this region without a healthy supply of Valium. Unless you enjoy loud, dark, cold busses, a runny nose and a murderous Danny Glover dubbed in Spanish, you'll need heavy sedation.
After Starbucks (on IOU) and hugs with las amigas, I feared we'd never be this young again. Sitting next to a German duo on the plane (at least we didn't have to make small talk) and continuing with the Thompson, I fell into a true mourning of his death, almost three years after the fact. To enter 2008 without this man, and without any other nationally recognized artist that embodies the spirit and integrity that he did is truly a tragedy.
Newark meant a passport stamp and Katie Couric's enlarged, illuminated face spinning on the baggage claim; I was (almost) home. Able to exchange $40 BZE for $11.70 at about 50% its actual worth, I happily purchased the NYT. Thursday Styles and a crisp ten is my birthright. News of Tom Cruise's scientological weirdness sat alongside talk of caucuses and wars. (Men don't like Hillary because she's too emotional, women don't like her because she's not emotional enough. Everyone wants change. Whatever that means.)
Dunkin Donuts awaited, courtesy of the Carlisle Group, who makes sure that our weapons are as fresh as our coffee, and then onto a(nother) bus, this time with mi hermana hermosa, a Scandinavian princess in a toggle coat, a Nueva Hampshire, where our padre waited for us.

Spent the next two days transfixed by the endless stream of boobs and bombs charging from the T.V., as well as the cereal, bed and SUV available at my disposal. Classes started a few days later and the coffee flows like wine as reading is assigned, its completion believed to be a meaningful task.
Thanks, America. You are debilitating convenience.
Except (especially?) when Elsewhere.




"Some people write their novels and others roll high enough to live them and some fools try to do both."
-- Hunter S. Thompson

Vocab Word

from antiwar.com

God in the Disunited States of America

(in which the author gets a life-time pass to the NSA's hit list. And God's.)

So it's 2007 and our lives are color-coded for ease of use. Blue means latte-sipping urban atheist, and Red means Big Mac chowing, bible-thumping country bumpkin. While all stereotypes claim basis in truth, we might need to start using our minds again. It's time to move past this archaic dichotomy of a paint-by-numbers country that's been shoved down our throats by the media. And Jesus.
I hate glib idiots as much as a I hate myself, but I'm about to offer a little unsolicited perspective on the "God" issue. First, it wouldn't matter at all if this very deity (or lack thereof) wasn't rendering our nation a loathsome circus whose respect from the rest of the world is falling as fast as [insert clever comment about an anorexic/obese celebrity's weight here]. The middle east hates us because we're godless, and Europe hates us because we're too religious (i.e. stupid.) Obviously our president is such an authoritarian idiot who would be so easily dismissed as a mindless puppet if he was not the (self-proclaimed) "decider" (and a "born-again Christian"). At least he's been successful in making 300 million people also look like idiots (while only 51% of them actually are) and claiming thousands of lives in the process. And we can rest-assured that God speaks through him.
Which leads me to my next point: those red/blue zealots/heathens are all wrong, i.e. soulless tools of the political machine we like to call democracy.


First, the Jesus freaks, because they're easier: the world was not created with you in mind. Join the twenty-first century and realize that there is no heaven, your suffering is not a punishment or a test from god. There is no kindly old white man sitting in the clouds over Kansas looking out for your best interests. God is not God. America is not God. You are a mass of biological systems and tissue, not the incarnation of God's image. You're making us all look bad, so stop it. The fact that they let you into this millennium is actually quite puzzling (wasn't the rapture supposed to occur anyway?). You are ruining this country.

And then we we have the other end of the spectrum-- the self-obsessed corporate hacks who go to bed with their laptops, wake up for Starbucks and drive to the office while listening to the Dow Jones report. If this sounds familiar, you might even go to church once a year to pretend that you stopped thinking about yourself for an hour. You are also ruining this country, and justifying Ann Coulter's existence. I would be happy that you're not having kids if that didn't mean the population below the Mason-Dixon line is sure to eclipse the entire country soon.

Here are two extremes: the absence of critical thought, relic from an age presumed dead, and the morally vacant automaton. And in this America, each encourages the other to more fully retreat into these roles, moving further from any sense of unity or belief in anything outside themselves (or their Christian god, always on America's side).
They're more alike than they are different, both blind ignorance: the opposites are joined in their obsessive identification with the media-constructed poles of contemporary American culture. So comfortable in inhabiting these roles, they forgot to actually exist outside their hate of themselves and each other. The god-loving or -loathing seems at this point more of a political tool than anything; each is only defined and legitimized by its opposite. Both signify the end of the world.
So what then? Let's open our eyes, stop ignoring the world outside our own narrow, color-coded sense of it, see past god/not god, self/other hatred and realize that we are all part of one whole: one country, one race, one system of living beings. "Right", stop being hypocritical, self-righteous and stupid. "Left", stop being nihilistic robots. Be humans and live somewhere outside your own mind.

I only offer up these sentiments because (god)dammit the world's in bad shape and this aggressive fracture is kind of like smoking two packs a day when you've already had a lung removed. There has to be a middle ground-- or secession.



allexperts.com