Politician as Brand

According to the NY Times, a politician recently said: "The latest episodes 'are indicative of a culture that embraces the politics-as-usual mentality that the American people are sick and tired of.' I love how they try to manipulate our perception of events while acting like they're working as our spokespeople and agents.

Should I Do It?

My present job is a 2-year contract that expires next August. I work for an appellate court, and I like it, but I'm ready for some more trench-level action. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be at this point so soon, but I am considering going solo instead of trying to find a compatible employer.

The plus side is that I get to call all the shots.
The minus side is that I have to call all the shots.

My biggest worry is whether I'll be able to generate enough revenue to make a living. I'm attracted to the legal aspect of being solo, but unenthusiastic about running a small business on which my family's well being depends.

Thoughts? Advice?

UPDATE: I am leaning away from this option now. I am not anxious to do the administrative work that would be a huge part of a solo practice. I would like some trial training. And if I do 8.5 more years of public service work, my federal loans will be forgiven. Of course, if the job market continues this way, I may go solo out of necessity.

Green Vomit Day

I drove into work today and noticed a suspicious number of people wearing green. I then drove by a couple of awnings set up on the side of the road, their occupants standing beside coolers. City Hall is flying the Irish flag. Ah! It must be St. Patrick's Day. That was at 11:30. It's now 1:30, and as I sit in my office, I hear hoots, whistles and screams from drunken semi-adults down the hill where a bunch of crappy bars and the parade route coincide. I don't really understand this holiday. Its sole purpose for non-Hibernians appears to be drinking. I can't imagine the parade is going to be any good (and I wonder if it's anti-gay like the NYC parade). What I want to ask the noontime revelers is:

Is there something stopping you from mainlining beer through a funnel, pounding car bombs, and blasting air horns the other 364 days of the year? On the other hand, what is it, aside from a the drunken Irish stereotype, about this day that makes you think it's okay to spend all weekend painting the town in green bodily fluids?

Of course, many of the dissolute youth out there probably spend every weekend painting the inside of frathouses with bodily fluids, and this is the one day they won't be arrested for doing it in public (though I am sure arrests will be high today). Whatever the reasons, St. Patrick's day, normally a shitshow, is especially shitty in a college town.

Maybe I just don't want to hear all that "whoohoo"ing while I am sitting here at my desk analyzing the law (and writing blog posts).

When I Get to the Promised Land, I'm Gonna Shake the Eye's Hand

Two thoughts in ascending length order:

1. People often bemoan "political correctness." It's changing our language. It's forcing people to use "they" as a singular pronoun. One change has been underappreciated. "Fireman" has become the much awesomer "firefighter." (Shockingly, spellcheck is dubious of "awesomer." Pish, it's perfectly cromulent.)

2. Earlier today, I was discussing music with a friend. We have similar, but not identical tastes. For instance, we disagree as to which bands we think are truly great. The discussion centered around Modest Mouse's "The Moon and Antarctica" (which I think is a meditation on mortality and religion). He didn't hate it, but didn't hear the greatness in it that I (and many others) do.

He suggested that their approach was to take a fairly simple song and build it up in layers. This may be true. I hadn't thought about it. I mostly was cognizant of the album's beauty and nuanced lyrics. I'm a fairly articulate person, but in trying to explain why I thought they were great, I was left fumbling, grasping. They're brilliant. Stunning. These are conclusions, not reasons, but they're nearly all I've got. They're inventive. Okay. But I can't really say how they're more inventive than, say Nickelback. I know they are, but . . . I can say that they have unconventional song structures (true?). They often switch up the rhythm and volume in a song. They create a rich, full sound through excellent production. Their songs are dramatic and often involve a high peak or crescendo. But all these things are doubtless true of bands I think are crap. So maybe I can praise them in a seemingly sensible way, but really, I'm at a loss.

So how do we talk about art in a useful way? We can talk formalistically, of emotional impact, of lyrics and melody (in music), of creativity, and of skill. But none of these is wholly satisfying. All approaches fail to make effable the ineffable. Two musicians could render the same song: one may make me weep and tremble and the other leave me indifferent, despite their playing the same notes. Art is a way we connect with each other on a spiritual level. So, perhaps, the reason I can't truly get at why I love one band over another is that no one can describe God. No one can appreciate him/her/it in all her/its/his aspects. To repeat an adage that is the punchline of a movie recommended to me by another friend (and frequent commenter here), there's no accounting for taste.

"sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly"

The Problem of Atheism

I am an atheist because I don't know what else to believe. When I was a Christian, a wavering of my faith anguished me. Now that the waver has long since phased into collapse, the old anguish is born again in new form. Instead of thinking "what if there is no God?," I think, "what can I believe in?" God is the answer for questions that defy answer. The question why eventually must end with the answer, because God. Without God as the answer to the unanswerable why, the question lingers. That there is no truly satisfactory answer despite millennia of inquiry suggests that perhaps the question becomes meaningless when applied to the fundamentals of existence.

When God is the answer, you can organize your life around basic principles like "Be nice to others (because God sez so)." Without the answer, you have an intuitive sense that good is good, reinforced/denounced by societies. And assuming the question is without meaning, what question should I be asking?

This metaproblem leads to more localized problems. I have especially been troubled by aspects of my godlessness in art and vocation. My next posts will explore these areas.

I Don't Even Know How to Begin to Understand

what it's like to wake up and think "I wonder if this is the day I die".

I sometimes forget the magnitude of the Iraq war. At least 100,000 civilian, over 4,000 US military, almost 10,000 US-aligned Iraq military deaths. That's around 50 violent deaths a day since 2003. And that doesn't take into account the war we're preparing to escalate in Afghanistan.

Google Maps Found My Chinese Restaurant

Two points about Google Maps:

1. I used Google Maps to find a Chinese Restaurant the other day. This would not be a remarkable feat were it not for the fact that I used street view. Google searching wasn't working to find the place, which I knew was across the street from another business. So I found the address of that business, found it on Google Maps, and used street view. I swiveled the camera around and was able to see the restaurant's sign. I then Googled that and was able to view a menu and get the number from that search. The process I just described is the sort of mundane thing many people use the Internet for every day. Every once in a while, though, I am amazed at the power at my fingertips. I can type an address and look at a 360-degree picture of the street. Astonishing. Magical.

2. If you didn't notice the other day, stories abounded about how google is releasing a Google Maps navigation application for smart phones. It killed the Garmin and TomTom stock prices. Apparently, google is going to make money off this deal because it now owns all its own maps (I understand why this would save them money, but not how this app is supposed to make them money). By tracing nearly every street in the nation to produce street view, Google committed the brute force necessary to create their own maps. The closest analog I can think of in terms of coverage and manpower is the census. Is Google as powerful as the federal bureaucracy?

from 2001

I was tired of the same old everyday, day to day, repeat junk. Tired of staring out and seeing what I saw all the time. Same black and glistening streets. Same Lexi and Volkswagens and Explorers intrepidly crowding me. I was tired of looking up, waiting for buildings to crash onto me, of drinking and drinking and being taken along, pretending not to be bothered. I was drinking the metally water from its protected source. Placid and cool, but not refreshing. I was smoking and each puff wore me down, made me think of more, of the next one to buy--of my struggle to consume and desire and need and need and not just let be and be. I had it all worked out of me. Whatever spark to fire the flame of fury or feeling or fortitude or risk. No dangling. Not vulnerable.

I used to skateboard. I was fearless, until I hurt myself. I used to snowboard. I was fearless, until I hurt myself. I used to believe.

My name is Random Spillwater. I'm a bastard of a bastard; the child of a motherless son. I'm a fatherless one. Mom was a telemarketer. She had a thing with her supervisor, Chuck. I don't like to think too much about Chuck and his white kingdom of cubicles, plastic and wires. Leering at the girls in headsets sitting in front of green-flickering computers. Leering at mom like a plague rat.

I spent my childhood playing video games, watching TV, and eating macaroni and cheese. No baseball, no soccer, no kites, no frisbee, no fishing. Children didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to them, but I had fantasies. Dervishes and diversions. I didn't hit the game-winning home run or kiss the girl (still waiting), but I talked to everyone. I said the right thing--to make people laugh, to raise the spirits of the sick, to excite the jealousy of those less well endowed. These were the dreams of Random the Orator. Hear him expostulate on subjects great and small. A meager grain of rice becomes a bumper crop of repartee.

The universe itself dissected, didacted, and resolved in the hollow of my mouth. I sing the stars to sleep and Oh, if someone had listened.

What a way to live. In silence always jabbering a commentary, every moment, every moment running on without break. Now the outside crushes in instead of the inside straining out. I had creases at 20, and my hair was shocked with white at 25. I lost the last believer yesterday. Everyone loses today.

Look at me, the small, angry man. I am everywhere; a cliche. Powerless of my own volition. Without belief in volition. Another whiner. Yet another dissatisfied, internally choked and knotted, socially backward log in the jam in the ol' river o life.

Love What You Do

Conventional wisdom holds that if you love what you do, work will never feel like work. I don't know about that: every job is bound to include responsibilities that feel monotonous or burdensome.

Nevertheless, so far so good with my new job. Often several hours pass without me checking the time. The work is challenging and worthwhile. While I've had acting jobs I loved, I've never had a job like this before: great work, great social benefit, great pay.