I Hate You Guys So Very Very Much

Recently I’ve realized it’s somewhat strange I have friends. I mean, all I do is make fun of them. How did I become friends with them in the first place? I’m not really sure.  On a very base level I think the fact that I am somewhat needy is what led me to my group of friends. I crave attention, I need people around me. So in college I bought Guitar Hero and invited everyone and their mother over to play, with offers of beer to go along with it. Once I trapped people I continued doing nice acts (driving people around, doing beer runs, picking up the tab at bars because it made me happy to see everyone else have fun, etc), and after awhile they ignored the fact that I made fun of them for sucking all the time (you guys do suck) and noticed the fact that as I was saying offensive, obnoxious things I was committing generally nice acts. This is the difference between my hero and me. He’s just a full blown jackass (well I guess he saved Kyle’s life that one time). My sarcastic asshole self stems from the relationship I had with my grandfather – I’m not sure why but we always picked on each other all the time. And since this occurred between the person I’ve loved most in my life and me, obviously I do it with anyone else I take a liking to. On the other hand it seems like a very normal thing to do – initially I wrote “a very guy thing to do” but my female friends do it as well – to pick on each other I mean. I wonder why this is – are we criticizing each other so that flaws we see in our friends are improved? Or do we just like comedy? I wonder what Aristotle and Plato said on this, I wish I knew Phaedrus better, I think I’ll read that again once I finally finish Anna K (this book is taking me forever). However I ended up with the friends I have is ultimately immaterial, and I’m damned glad that I did as I have some amazing friends.

This whole post has started because my friend base is dwindling once again. Clint moved out this morning, and Johnnie will be moving for his internship this summer soon (good thing Rachel Ulrich and I are now best friends and she’s cooler than Johnnie, anyway).  And as it dwindles I once again find myself wondering, “How the fuck do you meet people after college?” Nate and I joined an indoor soccer league and I thought I’d meet people (i.e. babes, but the coed was full) there but as it turns out I think we are two of four people who know English on the team. One of the other two is pretty old and the other one seems like a douche (also a problem of mine: until I get drunk with someone I generally dislike them). It doesn’t help that I’m extremely shy. I mean, I guess ultimately it doesn’t matter because I’m moving really fucking far away, but once I get there I need to figure out how to meet people I actually like. Obviously I’m just too virtuous to be surrounded by scoundrels all the time, I learned this from Aristotle. Good thing Jake will be there when I get there (and hopefully Batt Mutler!). Ultimately, I think I’m just kinda bummed the Johnnie household of 09 graduates is no more (Robbo and I are in the minority now!). Oh well.

But! Despite friends moving away, I have been doing some Hella rad stuff in my time outside of work lately. The days of practicing for SC2 glory are gone (Clint is probably to blame for that, he encouraged it the most and as he was leaving that encouragement became less meaningful to me), and I’ve been adventuring out of the house. First off is the indoor league. What a weird game that sport is. It’s fun, I enjoy bouncing the ball off the wall crazily, but it’s also insanely fast. And not fast in the way I excel at (i.e. running fast), but a lot of quick little touches moving the ball around. Patrick convinced me to try to limit myself to two touches (trap, pass) and that has helped a lot. But being that my team doesn’t know each other (and most can’t communicate with each other), there are a lot of people who dribble around way too much. Whatever, it’s fun. Other than that I’ve ended up hiking three times in the past week. This is especially nice as it reminds me of Pennsylvania. And tomorrow I’m going sailing! I can hardly wait.

Yeah so my life is pretty awesome. I’m an alcoholic who has great friends, goes hiking, plays croquet, and goes sailing. All of these are done better while drunk, so clearly I love this. More friends would be nice – good thing Joao is moving into DC soon.

I’m doing a CD exchange plan with friends before I leave for Korea. If you would like a mixed Cd from me, I will make you a mixed CD in exchange. Clint and I swapped last night, his mix is pretty rad. It introduced me to the awesomeness that is Jurassic 5. If you’re interested, let me know.

“No man is a failure who has friends.”

We been friends for a long time, a very close friend of mine

Then Can We Pull Over Here and Get Something to Eat? Cause I Like to be Wined and Dined After I’ve Been…

A week ago I went to the National Art Gallery with the goal of “Prove Plato wrong,” (impossible). For those unfamiliar with The Republic’s Book X, he makes a claim there that art is bad. For years I have used him as a crutch to attack art, because frankly it makes no fucking sense to me. I went to the MoMa senior year with Robbo, Tabs, Sam Porter and Sam Yelton and found myself thoroughly confused. As I stared at a “painting” of a large red square I thought, “Well this is fucking stupid and why is it art?” The trip to the National Art Gallery was an attempt to destroy the physical need to hurl when encountered with art. I believe it was succesful. While examining the many beauties hidden in Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life I couldn’t find a reason to dislike it and wondered what it was that Plato disliked in art. Later I walked to the modern art museum and found my old friend Nausea return. However, I decided I couldn’t use Plato as a crutch anymore, I mean why should I? That garbage was invented millenia after he wrote. So I decided to reread Book X.

It quickly occurred to me that I was slightly misremembering what Plato meant. When Plato attacks art he attacks all art – poetry, theater, etc. (This reminded me of the horror that it was dealing with my fellow freshmen whining, “But I like poetry, I like reading novels, wahwahwah.”) Of course Plato also liked poetry, he not only read it but wrote it as well. So what was his point? Censorship. He didn’t want the sophistry that polluted the poets to be able to attack him, he didn’t want idiots teaching the youth.

So here we are in modern America with giant red blocks that claim to be art. So what? As I said they don’t teach anything. They are fucking stupid (and I don’t care what your art history friends tell you, they are fucking stupid, too). Fortunately I have South Park to remind me the extent of that stupidity. In this case all they did was point out to me that this exists. What. The. Fuck. Why do people pay to see this filth? I just don’t get it.  I’ve heard that the movie is supposed to be satire on other torture porn movies, but movies like Saw and Hostile should have never existed in the first place. People should not be desentized to violence, and no one should pay money to watch someone be tortured for two hours. Of course I’m extremely critical of these movies because horror films in general give me nightmares, I close my eyes when Jack performs surgery in Lost and these particular movies make me physically ill. Then again I think people should have those reactions.

Of course this leaves the question of “How much censorship” should there be, but that’s too intelligent of an issue for my tiny blog to attack. One I really have no idea how to handle – though I think Plato does so well, allowing Socrates (the man who has seen The Good and The Beautiful) to see these things but not lesser men. Of course I’m not him and yet I watch South Park religiously…

So instead I’ll discuss a form of art I thoroughly enjoy – music.  I went to see Bad Religion and Rise Against last night and had a dandy little time. Bad Religion only played one song from their new CD so I found myself singing along to every other song. They put on a phenomenal show. It’s also fun to see a bunch of fifty year old dudes rocking out. Rise Against played a few too many new songs for my tastes (their new shit has gotten poppy) but I still enjoyed myself in the pit – they still know how to get a crowd moving. Unfortunately moving in Baltimore consists of a bunch of douchebags, one of which gouged my fucking eye. Also, why the fuck did Bad Religion play before Rise Against? They kept making jokes about being “fluffers,” but seriously one of these bands is thirty years old and the other is already turning into garbage.

Finally I think I’ve fallen in love with my hair stylist. Not only does she give me a perfect haircut when all I tell her is, “I’m going to an event in which I might see ex girlfriends,” she recently dyed her hair red. What a wonderful woman. Speaking of which, I am both excited and terrified about croquet. Excited to see friends, terrified of potential encounters with any psycho ex girlfriends. (Not all of them fit that category, just most, and one of them will definitely be there.)

If you are wondering, I cried and cuddled PenPen when I found out the Pens lost. So don’t make fun of them =(

I want to bathe you in holy water, I want to kill you, upon the altar