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February 19, 2003 — 09:40 p.m.
I've been very busy today preparing for a job fair tomorrow in Virginia. Knowing that people make most of their decisions based on first impressions, I spent most of the day grooming and ironing. I bought a new pen, a new watchband, I even shined my shoes. So, let's hope all goes well tomorrow.
Immediately following the job fair, we will be taking a little trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It will be, in my opinion, a well deserved vacation. As I will be partially away from civilization, I will be unable to update this blog. I do, however, look forward to reading what Eric has to say.
Oh, by the way, watch the movie Amelie. It is by far the best movie I've seen this year.
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 18, 2003 — 11:00 p.m.
Here, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, an interesting commercial has been making its electronic rounds. It starts with various police officers telling me that X amount of people were killed in Maryland last year because they weren't wearing their seatbelts and, because of this, if you are pulled over and not wearing your seatbelt, you WILL get a ticket.
At the end of this public service announcement, there stand about 75 of Anne Arundel's finest out in a field yelling with vigor, "No excuses!" and in unison point their fingers threateningly at the camera, "No exceptions!" Fade to black.
First, if anyone out there can find me a copy of this commercial, I will pay good money for it. Its comedic value is priceless. I really want to meet the marketing genius who thought this crap up. Hmmm, let's see...let's get a bunch of officers on the screen (with one way mirrored sunglasses) and have them growl threats at the public. Yeah, yeah. Then, we'll get a horde of them together and have them point menacingly at the camera while chanting no excuses, no exceptions, no excuses no exceptions. Good stuff that.
This reminds me of a real life experience of mine. When I was stationed in Monterey, California, a girl of about 12 years of age was abducted about three blocks from where I lived. Her remains were found 5 months later and, as far as I know, the culprit(s) is still at large. The thing is, after her abduction and even after the discovery of her body, speeding tickets, traffic fines, tickets for not wearing a seatbelt, etc, increased about ten-fold on Fort Ord.
The public backlash from this grew so intense that we were ordered not to say stuff like "Hey, don't you have a little girl to find or something?" to the police officers as they handed out these tickets.
I guess it hurt their feelings or something.
People feel the same way all over the country. When pulled over for any number of countless violations, I'm sure one of their first thoughts are "Hey, don't you guys have a murderer or rapist to catch or something?"
And that's just the point. They do, but it's much easier to harass you, dear citizen. After all, you are not as dangerous as a murderer or rapist. You're just a poor schmuck that didn't wear his seatbelt.
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 18, 2003 — 09:30 p.m.
I read the Dave Barry interview that Eric alluded to earlier. The interview was excellent and it certainly expressed much of what I feel when talking to people about being a libertarian. People who are not familiar with the ideology will most likely try to take any argument to the most unlikely extreme.
If you're against gun control, you must be for letting every private citizen have nuclear weapons in their back yard.
If you are for legalizing drugs, you must be for giving dime bags of crack to every child below the age of 5.
If you are for getting rid of laws that deal with consensual sexual relations in this country, well, you must be for letting everyone have sex with dogs.
I read an article in Liberty magazine a few years back (I'm not sure when, perhaps Eric can dig it out as he is/was an editor for the magazine) that addressed the problems libertarians have when communicating with the public at large. Many libertarians will go right for the throat when opening up their discussions. Drug laws? Abolish them, all of them. Guns? Automatic rifles to anyone who wants them. Public schools? Blow those suckers up!. The problem is, we often don't take the time to put issues into context. When we open a conversation with a statement like "Every single drug should be legalized and left to the private sector without harassment of government intrusion of any kind", it's gonna repulse people. Statements like these should be reserved for the hopeless (those who have no chance of seeing things your way), or people who are intelligent enough to process them.
I used to be an angry, in your face libertarian. I would go right for the kill at the scent of any blood. However, for any number of reasons, I found this tactic was not very successful. It only served to turn people off to me, or worse, to take me as a joke.
Anyway, back to the Dave Barry interview. This is my favorite part:
Reason: It strikes me as bizarre that a prospective Supreme Court justice has to get up there, in his 40s, and say, "No, I never smoked pot."
Barry: The whole thing about whether you smoke marijuana or not is so ridiculous. That and whether you protested the Vietnam War. Give me a break. Especially the marijuana thing. I'm inclined to think that anybody who never tried it should not be allowed in public office. But to make them get up there and lie, or at least be incredibly disingenuous, is just embarrassing.
After a while, the way this country deals with drugs is just not funny. What a waste of everyone' s time and effort. What a waste of a lot of people's lives. The way we deal with drugs and sex. I saw one of these reallife cop drama shows, and they mounted a camera in this undercover agent's pick-up truck, right under the gear shift, and they sent him out to pick up prostitutes.
So the whole show consisted of this guy, who's quite a good actor, driving to this one street, and young prostitutes come up to him and solicit him. He says OK. They get in. They're trying real hard to be nice. He's going to pay $23, that's all he's got and they said that's OK. Meanwhile, behind him the other cops, these fat men with walkie-talkies, are laughing and chuckling because here they are about to enforce the law and protect society. They take her to some street and then of course they come up and arrest her. This poor woman--I don't know whether she's feeding her drug habit or feeding her kids or whatever. And the cops are so proud of themselves, these big strapping guys.
It just made me sick to see this. To treat these people who are trying to make a living, one way or another, this way, and to be proud of it. It's on television and we're all supposed to watch this and feel good about it. It's just disgusting.
It's like when cops sell drugs to people and then arrest them. And then we reach the point where I think it was Sheriff Nick Navarro in Broward County [Florida] had his lab making crack so they could sell it. They couldn't get enough in south Florida, so they had to actually produce it themselves.
What politician would say, "This is really a waste of money to be doing what we're doing? It's ridiculous sending cops out to arrest prostitutes when we're supposed to be concerned about crime in this country." What politician would ever say that? What newspaper person would ever say that without getting stomped all over by all the other hypocrites?
I guess I see where the police are coming from. After all, if you allow people to participate in prostitution, what's next? Sex with dogs?
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 17, 2003 — 10:00 p.m.
The current atmospheric disturbances put me in mind of an old Outdoor School song we used to sing:
Whether the weather be fine or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!
I, myself, am feeling a bit under the weather (to coin a phrase) today. So, this will be a short entry. But, fear not! There is more to come!
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 16, 2003 — 09:00 p.m.
Well, we got snowed in today. At last check, I measured over two feet of snow outside my front door. And, the end isn't expected until sometime tomorrow. I hear tell the Governor has issued an executive order banning all non-essential (as in government, as they have a monopoly on 'essential' and the definition there of) traffic on the state highways. So, as Tony Soprano often says "whadda ya gonna do?"
I spent a good part of the day watching movies (thank goodness we still have electricity). First was The Time Machine. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I watch a movie that has been panned by the critics only to find it quite enjoyable. On my verbal scale, I would give it a "pretty good" while on my star scale (I recently converted to the 10 star system), I would give it 7 out of 10.
Next up was Brazil. I'm still debating whether or not to call this the perfect movie. On my verbal scale, it rates a "brilliant" while my star scale fluctuates between 9 1/2 and 10. I think I'll have to watch it again for a final verdict. I do know this, Terry Gilliam is a genius.
After the kids go to bed, we'll be watching From Hell. From the looks of it, I am going to have plenty of time to watch my backlog of movies and perhaps finish up my current book. So, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 16, 2003 — 00:25 a.m.
I've had the distinct pleasure of having some pretty good friends over the years. Recently, I've been trying to get back in touch with most of them as I have lost contact over the years, and the countries. As I've been working on contact, I've discovered (or rediscovered) just how talented they all are.
Take for example Alek Gembinski. My fondest memory of Alek is sneaking out of my house at around 2:00am to paint murals on a building overlooking one of the freeways in Portland. To be fair, I didn't do much painting but it was quite a wondrous experience just watching Alek do it. Of course Alek has refined all of his talents and is currently working in Seattle. Man, I hope to see him again sometime.
Then there is Jacob Gorny. This guy was not only a master artist, but a pretty damn good musician as well. Jacob went to college up in Walla Walla, Washington (which I always found amusing) and is currently working in Portland, Oregon. After I get done posting this, I think I'm going send him an email.
And of course there was Andrea Grant. One of the smartest people I knew in high school. The thing about Andrea was, she didn't let that stuff go to her head. She is the only person I know who has been to the South Pole.
There are countless other friends who don't reside on the Web. I hope to get reacquainted with them all. I am finding that the older I get, the more I miss their company.
— Justin M. Stoddard
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February 22, 2003 — 1:13 p.m.
Since I'm stuck paying for two apartments at once, at least for a couple of weeks, I'm postponing the move until next weekend. Given that the choice exists, I'd rather move when we're not in the middle of a thunderstorm and flood watch . . .
— Eric D. Dixon
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February 21, 2003 — 11:48 p.m.
I signed the lease for my new apartment this afternoon. Looking over the contract and the place, I felt like that time I saw Roswell Rudd play "Prelude to a Lease," shouting at the end of the piece: "I can't make up my mind! I can't make up my mind! I can't make up my mind!" But I made up my mind and signed. Now I just have to start packing and cleaning up my current place. If only I could drag myself away from these two glowing screens . . .
— Eric D. Dixon
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February 19, 2003 — 11:51 p.m.
Simple pleasures, like driving a car, are that much sweeter when you've been immobilized under a pile of sludge for a few days. It's not much of a setback, considering some of the other unpleasant surprises that can happen — like the car lying upside-down on the middle of the freeway, with its windshield smashed in, as I drove home from dinner after work. Just being able to drive to the top of the parking lot (about seven city blocks long, and I'm at the end, on the bottom) was a rush this morning after I left for work. I spent a couple of hours with a broom clearing snow off and from around my car, before some kids asked me how much I'd pay them to finish digging me out. I told them, they accepted, and I was gone 20 minutes later. Freelance capitalism is a beautiful thing. I bought two burritos at Chipotle to celebrate. By the time I got home tonight, there were finally snow plows winding their way through the parking lot, making everything habitable again.
In other news, I'm moving this weekend, to Alexandria, VA. It'll be nice to finally get out of the hood after almost four years — but I'm not looking forward to moving all my crap. Manual labor sucks . . .
— Eric D. Dixon
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February 18, 2003 — 1:46 a.m.
On Friday night, Justin bought one of Dave Barry's recent books, Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, a very funny look at politics and related insanity (yes, Justin, I've actually read it). We talked briefly about the fact that Barry is a libertarian, and I mentioned that Reason magazine ran an excellent interview with him back in 1994.
I discovered Dave Barry in my early teenage years (maybe even preteen — like, 11 or 12 years old), and his wacky sense of humor seemed tailor-made for me. It was a surprising bonus to discover that Barry was a libertarian as well, years later after my own political beliefs had solidified . . . Looking back over this interview now, I think it's worth sharing here. I've excerpted below my favorite segment. Enjoy, and be sure to read the rest.
Reason: Last fall you wrote a piece in the Tropic and explicitly acknowledged being a libertarian. . .
Barry: John Dorschner, one of our staff writers here at Tropic magazine at The Miami Herald, who is a good friend of mine and an excellent journalist, but a raving liberal, wrote a story about a group that periodically pops up saying that they're going to start their own country or start their own planet or go back to their original planet, or whatever. They were going to "create a libertarian society" on a floating platform in the Caribbean somewhere. You know and I know there' s never going to be a country on a floating anything, but if they want to talk about it, that's great.
John wrote about it and he got into the usual thing where he immediately got to the question of whether or not you can have sex with dogs. The argument was that if it wasn't illegal to have sex with dogs, naturally people would have sex with dogs. That argument always sets my teeth right on edge.
And I always want to retort with, "You want a horrible system, because you think the people should be able to vote for laws they want, and if more than half of them voted for some law, everyone would have to do what they said. Then they could pass a law so that you had to have sex with dogs."
I was ranting and raving about this here in the office. So my editor, Tom Shroder, said "Why don't you write a counterpoint to it?"
So I wrote about why I didn't think libertarians are really doing this kind of thing so that they can have sex with dogs. I discussed some of the reasons that a person might want to live out of the control of our federal, state, local, and every other form of government. Actually, I don't think I even called myself a libertarian in the article. I think Tom Shroder identified me as one.
Reason: Did that give you pause, coming out of the closet on this?
Barry: I guess libertarianism is always considered so weird and fringe that people assume that you're in the closet if you don't go around talking about it. Usually in interviews we're talking about humor writing and they don't bring it up. Because I don't write an overly political column, people just assume I'm not. I guess nobody assumes anybody is a libertarian. It's a more complex political discussion than most people are used to, to explain why you think the way you do about public education or drug laws, and why it's not as simple as being for or against something.
Reason: Did you get any mail about being a libertarian after that article?
Barry: I got a few letters, mostly pretty nice. One or two letters saying, "Here's why it wouldn't work to be a libertarian, because people will have sex with dogs." Arguments like, "Nobody would educate the kids." People say, "Of course you have to have public education because otherwise nobody would send their kids to school." And you'd have to say, "Would you not send your kids to school? Would you not educate them?" "Well, no. I would. But all those other people would be having sex with dogs."
— Eric D. Dixon
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February 17, 2003 — 9:36 p.m.
This afternoon, I decided I'd take a shot at heading to the store, maybe a restaurant too, if there were any open. This was my first time actually setting foot outside my apartment since the blizzard started late Saturday night (I went out Saturday and didn't get home until around 2:30 a.m., before the snow had begun falling in earnest). Usually the day after a snowstorm, the maintenance crew at my apartment complex has at least cleared a few walkways, put down some salt, or something — but there were only a few footprints leading from my building's door to the parking lot through the two-foot drifts of snow . . .
The drifts directly surrounding my car are well over three feet deep, and although I spent a good 45 minutes clearing snow off and from around the car, I finally gave up when I noticed that even the SUVs who managed to escape their parking spaces were having trouble getting up the hill and out of the lot. The snow hasn't been plowed or shoveled at all around here.
I started to walk to the convenience store up on the street (a five-minute walk in the best of conditions), but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Back to more Pasta Roni and Pringles. Then I remembered some frozen ravioli I've had in the freezer for awhile. I've never eaten this stuff because I keep forgetting to buy sauce, or at least ingredients for sauce (which I probably wouldn't get around to making even if I had all the ingredients on hand). Rummaging through my cupboard, I found a can of plain tomato sauce, which I decided could do the job. Water, salt and pepper (complementing the onion & garlic already listed in the tomato sauce ingredients) rounded out this gourmet delicacy. It really wasn't bad.
— Eric D. Dixon
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February 17, 2003 — 3:32 p.m.
A few weeks ago, the pho list had a thread of listers' favorite CDs of 2002. I posted my list then, and I reproduce it here now, in the neverending quest for more blog content. I've limited it to CDs released (legitimately) for the first time in 2002, which disqualifies such otherwise list-topping CDs as the extended remaster of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. You have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe that's a lame place to draw it, but there it is.
- King Crimson, Live at the Zoom Club 1972
- Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel
- Wayne Horvitz, Sweeter Than the Day
- Bill Frisell, The Willies
- Peter Gabriel, Up
- King Crimson, Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With
- Tom Waits, Alice
- They Might Be Giants, No!
- California Guitar Trio with Tony Levin & Pat Mastelotto, CG3+2
- Amy Denio & Petunia, To Lie Tenderly
- Neil Young, Are You Passionate?
- Tom Petty, The Last DJ
- Tom Waits, Blood Money
- Naked City, Naked City Live Vol. 1: Kitting Factory 1989
- Dave Douglas, Infinite
- Curlew, Meet the Curlews!
- Medeski Martin & Wood, Uninvisible
- Trey Anastasio, Trey Anastasio
- George Harrison, Brainwashed
- Painkiller, Talisman: Live in Nagoya
- Either/Orchestra, Afro-Cubism
- Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, Purple Onion
- Camper Van Beethoven, Tusk
- Phish, Round Room
- Shannon McNally, Jukebox Sparrows
— Eric D. Dixon
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