***ReTrO PoSt***

[Getting Along Good] - first posted: September 15, 2005

I am having a pretty damn good day. Lets back up about a week and I'll tell you why I'm having such a good week. I SAW DAVE MATTHEWS!!! Finally, I freakin' saw dmb in concert and I've gotta say, IT....WAS.....AWESOME!!! This was a concert where I wasn't just rocking back and forth pathetically because I didn't know what else to do, no. This concert, I was Woo-ing at the beginning of their song, "Warehouse," I was dancing to "Louisiana Bayou," I was hitting the high notes on "Bartender," and I smelled more weed there then anywhere. And people were boozing it up and a lot of them were singing and dancing not out of joy, but because they were trashed so bad. And Boyd was on the fiddle and he was a-fiddlin' and a-hoppin' around the stage and then he got in the face of Dave and was like, "Oh yeah! You like that?" only not as homo-erotic. And Dave was just feeding it right back to him, and then his solo came up on "So Much to Say" and he was like, "Step aside..." and took Boyd to school. Being at Red Rocks wasn't too bad either- I mean, it is DMB's most recognized and appreciated concert spots, since the last time they played there was 95....I might be right on that one. Thanks a lot, Huber, for the tix and the experience. It will go down as the highlight of this year, most likely. Come to think of it, Jon was responsible for two highlights of my year. One was Mardi Gras, the other was this....wow! Welp, gonna go.

The Unmistakenable Nonsense

I was recently watching a movie with David Cross* in it (*Mr. Show, Scary Movie 2) and something odd struck me about it at the ending, where the movie flips to a fuzzy, no-signal screen, and the movie ends. Within the fuzziness of that scene, I clearly share the image of a woman and a man kissing. The first thing I thought was, "Nah. I didn't just see that..." and then it dawned on me. My mind automatically thought of kissing someone. I witnessed a subliminal message in the media. This wasn't like noticing the 'boom mic' in a movie, many times over like I did in the movie "The Break-Up". These people had secretly placed a subliminal message within the context of their film; I felt raped. Now I don't trust the media because what if subliminal messages are already being fed to us through our own television? While thinking this, I suspected another group of people of doing such things; auto-racers. Nascar racing, to me, feels hypnotic! Picture it - a couple dozen cars, different colors, repeatedly driving around a track, and you are following your favorite racer's car with your eyes, continuously around said race track - that seems hypnotic. Then, every five minutes is a beer commercial, and a commercial for a new movie or movie release - a complete life of comsumption. And you ask why the majority of Nascar fans are below the poverty line!

A Little Bed-time Story Before I'm Through

While talking about 'the benefits', I had somehow come across something relevant that I'd like to share now. A lot of people against the foul act of smoking stated that all forms of smoking are bad for you. That meant cigarettes, cigars, pipe smoking, marijuana smoking...Etc, if the rest of that smoking might be crack or what-have-you, it all was bad. Certainly cigarette smoking is very bad for you; it's not only addictive, but cigarettes contain added properties to the tobacco that, once inhaled, kills you quicker, hence the reason why Phillip Morris states, "There is no such thing as a safe cigarette." Cigars, depending on which kind you get, are basically fatter cigarettes with more of the tar for your lungs. I say 'depending on which kind you get' because hand-rolled, right in front of your face, cigar manufacturing actually cuts out those harmful additives. Cigars are bad for you. Pipe smoking; more tar than cigarettes, but less than most store-bought cigars, though, that statistic irks me, unless, it's the actual tobacco itself containing the tar. With pipe smoking, you pack loose tobacco into the basin, and, you've got yourself a pipe ready to be smoked. This seems the safer of the three because you've basically cut out all the harmful ingredients; no paper used to roll the tobacco like you'd find on a cigar or cigarette, and the tobacco is freshly packaged tobacco, cut up, ready for you to use, unless they treat the tobacco with chemicals to keep it from spoiling, if tobacco spoils. I really don't feel like throwing up this morning to find out the real solution; I'm sure I'm missing something. I'd say smoking out of a pipe would be the best way, but people I've talked to say it's the worst. Then, we go into the other things you can smoke, like marijuana and crack cocaine. Marijuana, "burns you out!" 'You lose your will to control your own sanity' 'You destroy brain cells' 'You become retarded!' None of these claims are true.

Here's the truth - "Infection - Researchers at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington presented findings from animal studies that showed cannabinoids markedly altered helper T cell production of cytokines, which are important to resistance of infection. More disturbing, they provided strong experimental evidence that marijuana and other opiates may be co-factors in the progression of infectious diseases." - USA Today article, March 16, 2000
You are at greater risk of heart attack if you're middle aged, and, of course, the infection part of it goes into how your whole body is prone to illness.

There are many ways of fighting infection though. Vitamin C (strawberries, oranges, papaya, mangos, tomato juice) , for instance, strengthens many things in your body, and is a healthy antioxidant. Vitamin E (a variety of nuts, apples, spinach, pastas even!) an antioxidant vitamin involved in the metabolism of all cells, helps. You consume a lot of those vitamins, and that creates a strong defense against any type of infection.

Sadly, though, there are no positives to smoking crack cocaine...I really hoped it cured something, but it doesn't do any good...

Medicinal use of marijuana has revealed some very astounding results. It prevents and treats many types cancers, it reduces spasticity in MS sufferers, marijuana could reduce one's risk of developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma because it slows down the overproduction of harmful B cells...Wait, I'm catching on to something...

We've reviewed the negatives of cigarettes, cigars, and the pipe smoking of tobacco because, let's face it, there are no proven positives of tobacco use, no matter how you smoke it. Marijuana is a different story. Sure, risk using marijuana and increase your chance of infection, but, the last time I checked, an infection can be fought off and cured, emphysema, greatly connected with the use of cigarettes or other tobacco products, except snuff, can't be cured, and can only be prevented if you don't smoke.

The good sort of out-weighs the bad on marijuana. I don't condone the use of marijuana, but, out of those I've looked at just now, it seems marijuana is the safest, and holds the greatest benefit of them all. This reminds me of this time I went to this friend of a friend's house, and we were all outside, enjoying the night breeze, and, a few of my friends were drinking, I'm not afraid to admit, and a smaller few than that were burning one down. This girl I had just met that night, was standing right across from me, and she was offered a beer, and she refused because she had to go home later that night. She was then offered what the other people were doing, and she refused because she had to go home later that night. And she really was against the fact that these people were doing this in her presence because she had to go home later that night. Her parents would probably smell it on her if she helped burn one down. While she was explaining this, someone, I can't remember who, exhaled, and the smoke got caught up in the wind, and this person just completely blew everything he was holding in his lungs at her...And she was worried about everyone smoking in her presence!

The Benefits

I've been confirming the benefits of a few certain things - the benefits of the disposal of pennies has crossed my mind. I am anti-pennies; I seriously don't like to use them...in fact, I throw them on the ground when I get them, I don't use them in any coinage transaction, and I see pennies as the coin equivalent of shit, especially when handed a handful of sweaty, warm, degraded pennies, with like pieces of lint, debris, and crusted over, unknown brown, ungodly shit all over them like the type of pennies I see.

Another benefactor would be that of low consumption of alcohol, or, not drinking hard liquor, but drinking low, almost no volumes of alcohol, like beer or wine. The more you have to drink, the better. When you are full of liquor, like beer, your stomach will stop you before your conscious thought. You tend to drink more alcohol to get completely hammered when drinking beer or wine, a complete differential of drinking hard liquor. With hard liquor, you drink less to get hammered, which means less liquid in your system. It would take your system twice, almost three times as long to get that shit out of your system. And, being alcohol, it already takes way too long to exit your system. With beer or wine, you drink more of it, causing your body to have more liquids, thus, enabling you to pass it quicker. And wine is said to be a great way to clean out your system, much like water, though I hardly believe that.

Oh course, the benefits of having a friend with benefits is free sex, anytime you want it. But it just seems like a lot of the things I'm talking about have negative effects as well. Consider the alcohol thing. That could lead to serious health problems, alcoholism, which ends with you isolated from loved ones. Not good. The negative benefits of having a friend with benefits would be just using someone for sex, you'd want your partner to be clean, and, if they are set up with the same perdictament you two are in with many different people, that's not clean. That's only to name a few. The advantages of pennies would be a lower form of coinage just in case your meal ticket came to the sum of $14.23...a nickel just wouldn't cut it!

The biggest benefit, though, is the benefit of life. To experience the creation of it, and to partake in the creation of it, is a worthwhile experience that only life can bring, unless God has to do it all over again. The main benefit of life is the experiences of life. But with every benefactor comes the negative. What kind of life would be worth living if you were in a coma, or sustained serious injury to where you were paralyzed from the eyes down? You're a useless body with a brain. How sad it would be that no one would understand you, or, how sad would it be to never express your thoughts or who you are? Some people deal with the worst life could deliver. A few give up, and just wonder aimlessly, depressed, alone, without love or true acceptance. A few of those commit suicide or murder, in the case of murder, only to bring the same pain they feel day in and day out to other people who have it good. It doesn't even have to be murder - their goal in life is strictly to cause hate or pain among the loved and happy. But to those who strive to make each day better than the last, and are thrown into a shitty situation, those few were destined for life. Think about that. Their goal in life is to live. Without that goal, their lives would be as good as those murderers and fiends. Their want in this life is to make other people happy, and, in return, make themselves happy because they truly only feel happiness by expressing happiness. They accept their lives, and have decided that they were given life to give it, in any form possible. They were destined to live. A lot of people ignore that. They think living is to entertain themselves, they live to satisfy only themselves...that's not living. That's a selfish embodiment! The benefactor of the life of giving life is true happiness, not forced happiness to hide pain or grievance, but true happiness. They want that life. I only wish I knew happiness like that. I feel it, though, sometimes when I'm at the most content. Then it fills me up, and it's like an inner explosion. And I just feel like smiling. Other times, I don't feel that way, and am forced to look like I'm happy, or act like I'm happy. And why is that? Because happiness is radiant. You feel happy, or look it, or act it in any way, and other people can't help but feel it. And what's life any ways? Can life be summed up by just saying that life is happiness? Not necessarily, but happiness shares a huge responsibility in life. So, in a sense, spreading happiness is like spreading life, only, the real thing is always the best.

Where's the Beef in Loans?

Payday loans, cash advance loans, check advance loans, post-dated check loans or deferred deposit check loans - any of this something you've heard of before or seen around? The FTC define them as "...small, short-term, high-rate loans..."; nifty, little loans offered from check cashers and other finance companies when you need the money now! Think of it as a cash-rewarding credit card, in a sense that, just like a credit card, you get the cash when you need it, but have to pay it off later. Why would it be a problem, right? A lot of people own credit cards...those companies, along with the FTC, get their money in the long-run anyways, right? Wrong. Ever stopped to wonder why in some towns, you see Payday loans more than in other towns? These companies feed off poverty-stricken communities. Almost unnoticed, they move in, and before you know it, they are feeding the feeble minds of the poor with promises of wealth, and an answer to debt. It's nice to get a pay advance, until you go over your spending limit, then realize because of the offered security of another paycheck, you have spent way too much money and am further down in debt. I like to discuss my mental cycles - different events that link together and form a sort of reoccuring effect. These cycles can happen anywhere. McDonald's, for instance, is a cycle. Cash is delivered with every purchase of a Big Mac, the fat, obese lug who ordered that meal, sits down like he does everyday to stuff that hunger-demishing death into his face, and McDonald's is introduced to another third-world country. Then repeats, until that fat, obese lug is buried and gone, but, the cycle continues because McDonald's gloats that it serves 1 billion people a day. Payday loans have an equally disturbing cycle; they are financial-horror trendsetters. Their cycle begins by advancing someone with a quick loan, giving them the cash on the spot that they would've gotten employed and entering a new payday. They now hold in their hands filthy green, which equals to the overall total of two cashed paychecks for them to do whatever tickles their consumer fancy. Oops! What's this, Freddie...lost all that cash already??? Do keep in mind, beginning the first day of next month, we track your loan...pay it in full, who we deliver you a few notices that respond with: "Forgetting something? We had a deal! Give us the money by next week, or we start increases the balance you owe us!" Suddenly, that smiling, friendly look you saw on the face of Bob, the loaner (Loan-shark Pimp!) isn't too friendly anymore. He wants his money! But stupid you! Pulling out your pocket sleeves to reveal moths that flutter away from your existence - you spent all that money on a guitar, or other possessions, or maybe you used it to get out of the debt you were already in, only creating more debt for you to pay off again. "Well, I still have my other paycheck...wait, darn it! That's right, I sold that one already off...Jimminy Christmas! Will I ever win?" Sadly Freddie, not when you tangle with loan-sharks disguised as legit business...

I'll provide a quick summary of what happened to Freddie.

A borrower writes a personal check payable to the lender for the amount he or she wishes to borrow plus a fee. The company gives the borrower the amount of the check minus the fee. Fees charged for payday loans are a percentage of the face value of the check or a fee charged per amount borrowed.

Let's say Freddie has his check back, has never messed with a payday loan before, and is standing right in front of the small housing building, about to enter to get his "free" money offered to him on the radio. He has a $145 check because Freddie works hard, but isn't rewarded for it with much. He needs out of debt quick, and is happy to see that $290 should do it. Otherwise, if he waits around anymore, he'll have to pay double or triple that! Freddie had continuously heard of payday loans on radio, on television, he even drove passed the place everyday going to work. Freddie needs $145 more dollars for the $290 debt. He rest assures that he can live off $175 he's entitled to get from a friend of his. He receives his $145 on the spot, but, what he doesn't know is they charge a lending fee on top of that, and, if that money isn't paid off, they continue to charge lending fees and other fees to his title. Freddie is no longer in debt. He lives off the $175, and, at the end of the month, decides to splurge after being so responsible with his green, and finally paying of his prior debt. His employer regretfully informs him that there was a situation at work, and his paycheck was held. A week goes by. Finally, he gets his check for $175. He heads down to Payday Loan, where, upon arrival, they tell him his lending fee, and also the charge on not paying off the loan in the days they agreed on. He's now in debt again.

Cash Advance Loans - the cost of the initial loan is a $15 finance charge and 391 percent APR. If you roll-over the loan, or hold it for a certain extension, let's say, three times, the finance charge would climb to $60 to borrow $100. Does it make sense to pay for money? My mind is blown! How is that even possible...you might as well keep the $60 and like recycle or something to get the additional $40...donate blood platlettes or something. That should get you pretty close to the money you need.

You can find out about so many different options of getting money then using Payday Loans. I consider them a pollutant, and, like every other pollutant (Wal-mart) they need to be stopped.

What is thou PAY-SHHH-CENTS?

I've been thinking of many o' things, and they all center around this conformity of ignorance on a day-to-day plain of my hometown's existence. Hutchinson seems like the ignorant capital of the world to me. I've been talking to a few people about this thought, and it seems to boil down to a lack of patience in my sector of living. And I've had people come up to me and say, "Jesus, I couldn't take your job for a second because it involves way too much patience, which I lack," or, "It would frustrate the hell out of me!" That has never bothered me. Sure, I deal with my fair share of people, but I never get frustrated. And hardly ever impatient. It comes down to the quality of people I can't comprehend. Why they would live their life like this, or how they were forced to. That pains me. I have a hell of a lot of patience in this body of mine. Have you ever got on to this thing called the internet? (You might even be on it as we speak, but you might not know it.) The internet is invisible. Until you are in it, that is. Any ways, I thought of the most tedious task ever assembled to test patience, and I think I have that duty nailed down. Parenthood. How does that not scream patience, and coping with the fact that when you have little impatient bastard kids, it's more of a give very little, but take a shit load relationship? That's a real patience-tester...That, and chess. I realized a lack of patience within the people I see everyday, these patrons of mine, would result in an absence in good parenting. Afterall, think of all the fits a kid has in a day, especially babies - one when it's hungry, tired, just plain agitated - it would be a God damned miracle to get out of a department store without that baby crying. An impatient person would shush the baby or tell it to not cry right now. A patient person wouldn't have that probably because, unlike an impatient person, this more patient, holier than thou when it comes to patience-person would have already subdued the baby before entering the department store. In fact, they would have known exactly what time their kid was going to act up because they were so calm and used to dealing with the individual. Patience is a virtue - it's commonly seen as one, but with all virtues, is almost always ignored. I've set up a certain mindset, or as it is referred to in this book I'm reading, as a 'Chautauqua', although, I'm not on a journey in discovering this. The person in my book believes Quality should be a part of realism; without Quality, our lives would be meaningless, would not be entertaining or enjoyable, much like George Orwell's classic "1984". Well, without patience, you lose a certain distinguishable intelligence. How intelligent do you look getting frustrated at a short wait? Not too intelligent at all, and how about your courteousness? Or care? Isn't care a low form of quality? To care for something is to find quality in it...you'd lose a bit of quality in the middle of losing your patience. I see it as a large web or diagram, with virtues and values written down, and like a web, it can all come tumbling down after removing a certain strand of something because to have a web, everything must go together, that's how it all fits within that web. If quality is attached to care, and care fits within patience, which, in itself fits within something else (I don't know how far I want to go with this) then, I would imagine more values are lost or missing when others are absent. Philosophize it as you will. I just have found that in thinking more and more, taking what I can from other people's thoughts and associating that with the whole picture, you could go back to what I was stating about an absence in proper child-care. And in finding that answer, ask, what does a child really need? Emotionally, a child needs to feel, above all else, secure. Without security, he or she lives a life dedicated to wanting security, when, in all aspects of a secureless life, that person most likely will be insecure. I find it to be very sad when a child is brought into the world with a shitty life, or just in a bad situation. And these unwed mothers popping out babies on some sporadic cycle, are just causing their kids to be just like them. In a sense, the world is doomed to idiots. Whatever happened to the good parents? In asking this, were there ever really good parents? Think of a good parent for me...was it a character on television by chance? The early generations looked to Joan Cleaver from "Leave it to Beaver". The median generations might think Karen Arnold from "The Wonder Years" or Danny Tannor, Joey Gladstone, Jesse Katsopolis - the threesome fathers from "Full House". These days, you might think Sandy Cohen from "The O.C.". What labels a good father or mother? "Oh, well Matthew's father let's him stay out as long as he wants. No curfew...such a great dad!" Things like that are no showing of a good parent. Security issues arise because honestly, letting a 12-14 year old kid out of your sight all night is just negligent. Can you truly say your parents were good parents? If you're not mature in answering this, and still hold it against your parents that they spanked you, don't speak. They did it to set grounds. And now more to this ever-filling pot! To have a kid that is boundless - you really don't want to think that, do you? If you don't set up grounds or bounds to how far your kids will go, you've then got a real mess. A parent who sets those grounds - in my eyes, that's a good parent, to an extent. They could set grounds, by brute force. "I'll kick the shit out of you if you steal that cookie." The cookie gets stolen. And then you have child abuse. I guess, to really narrow this rant down in the coarse of having grounds set with brute force, you've got to have a new mindset. You can go so far, then be stopped. For instance, here in the lab, we had a rule - the first 5 copies free, the rest 10 cents, so, of course, we had people printing off 20 copies, then picking out 5, and trashing the rest. They stepped over the line, and they got checked. Now, you have to pay for all copies. I'll spank my kid, he or she is throwing a fit, I've counted to 3, the fit persists, and here's the spanking. It's all within grounds of establishing those bounds - you throw a fit, you get spanked. So less and less, the fit comes up. All of a sudden, no more fit, which, in light of good behavior, no more spankings. But every once in a while, you get those Phil Spectre people, or Bing Crosby's who just beat the shit out of their kids for not playing the piano right, and those grounds for beatings are broken. Child Services come in. How is a government organization competent enough to say when or when-not to take a kid from a parent's custody? Our government is a shamble! That's bullshit to come in and regulate something you have no knowledge of. What about those kids who weren't beaten profusely; the ones that deserved the spanking because of bad behavior; the parents who were setting boundaries with the grounds that you misbehave, you get a spanking? You take the kid away, and right there - it completely defeats any type of security the parent might have established earlier on. Without feeling secure, other things go, like caring, a false sense of humanity...sure, what you did was best for them, you thought, Child Services, but you just destroyed a good portion of that kid's mentality. And, defeating one thing wipes out others. Security is gone, care, which has eliminated patience, quality, good temperament...their world is askew. They think, at any moment, my kids could be taken away, eliminating spankings or bounds for their kids, thus establishing that if a kid is without strong, moral guidance, that kid will more and more be less of a good parent themselves. Thus, an art of patience. Patience can be part of Quality in a sense. So, when it comes to the author of my book I'm reading thinking Quality should be a realism, then yes, I'd have to agree. We all take a sort of Quality in something, for instance, I take care in writing these little brain mumblings - I look for facts, I do research, then, I sit and rest, and think. Boom, a blog! I also have a Quality in life. I'll get really pissed off, and, in the heat of the moment, I might say something or just act nuts, and won't care what I say or do. After I've cooled down, I might start thinking why I acted the way I did, how my environment interacted with the proceedings, and what to change next time. It comforts me, that's why, it's best for me to just sit in seclusion and think to myself, how could I better an experience like that next time. I view that as a sort of Quality. I care to do and be better. It's in these moments that I'm thinking, that people say I look depressed or angry. My mind is just racing through things, pushing back emotions, and care, to delve deeper for answers. Maybe in a span of a life-time, I'll find answers and construct my own theories and hypotheses, but for now, I guess a more sensitive, personal request from myself to you would be to keep reading and returning to this site.