10/12/05
10/10/05
Excerpt from a Speech by Bill Watterson @
Kenyon College, Gambier Ohio, to the 1990 graduating class.
"It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.
If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.
We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery-it recharges by running.
You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of "just getting by: absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury."
At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems.
For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.
A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.
So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it.
10/08/05
Off the top of my head...
even though i love alec empire - when he talks all of his revolutionary/german political stuff - I'm at a loss. He's just too vague. But he rocks. Kind of like Elvis Presley and Hitler beating the shit out of each other while one sings and the other yells at the top of his lungs.
this is the first time that I've worn a sweater in a long, long time. I'm happy about this, but I should feel a lot cooler than I feel right now, because i feel like a dork. I wanted to wear something dark, scary, fashionably wrong or just plain boring - but sitting here looking like I do - just makes me feel like I'm an older boy writing a bunch of shit on a computer while the girlfriend gets ready. But I do have my fingernails painted - so maybe I'm not that old - just kind of retarded.
read warren ellis' Fell and/or Desolation Jones comic books. do it.
man, i love those nights when nothing's really happening and then you return the phone calls of a couple of friends (something that I'm trying to do w/ more regularity) and then it just turns into a whole shashed bang job of getting straight-pissed and then you wake up all head-thudded and w/ a friend on the couch asleep and then you take him home and remember that you have pictures of him putting his balls into Michelle's really expensive, fancy heels in your camera. this was w/ her permission, of course.
durka durka! what movie is that quote from?
my back still hurts from lifting a box of comic books last week
i dread bartending tomorrow night
my girlfriend is taking TWO hours to get ready and by the time that we arrive at the bar - it will be late. I'll have four drinks combined w/ the million that I'm having right now, and then when the bar closes and she's ready to pass out due to her two total drinks - I'll want to keep on going. This will cause some drunken strife. She'll also be up at 8 in the morning and I will be squealing like a freshly-shucked newborn from the vagina of a sweaty mother. I will regret that last sentence tomorrow morning when I re-remember it.
i like dean martin. much. not as much as drinking, but much. those last two words sounded like I was saying BUTT MUNCH. If you had a BUTT MUNCH for LUNCH then it would be a BUTT MUNCH LUNCH.
I need to stop this before Blogger eats it, and I do too.
get bloody pissed tonight, folks.
for me. just don't beat anybody up.
10/07/05
Bloc Party...
April (friend, not the month) had left. I started to watch The Peter Jennings Collection: Disc 1 with the girlfriend, who, of course, fell asleep. Right when we we're getting to the special report on Ecstasy and on the report about the history of the L.A.P.D. too! I bet when the Martians land and I have documented proof to show her on DVD - Sleeping Beauty'll miss that also, so no big deal.
Tony had flaked on me earlier. He was supposed to come over hours ago to pick up most of the old comic books of his that I was going to sell on eBay but never got really around to because I've got too many of mine that I'm trying to do the same to also.
Just a minute ago, Tom/friend and neighbor - scared the shit out of me while I was smoking in my backyard.
So. Mr. White Shirt Lead Guitarist Tony and Mr. Black Shirt Singer Tom are tonight's flake and boogeyman. I curse them. Watch them and curse them. Ask them to apologize while you watch this.
ENJOY...
10/06/05
10/04/05
From Far Away, They Sound Like Angels. But, The Closer I Get, The More They Sound Like Braking Trains...
tonight
I got hit
by another driver
when I was driving to the gas station
I hit my head against my window frame
but I've been hit harder than that
so it wasn't that big of a deal
after getting his info
I put all of the paperwork crap in my car
and then started to walk inside to buy beer
Gas for MY internal combustion engine
not for the Toyota
I heard a smack
the poor, stupid bastard
had backed up into a black SUV
a Japanese family spilled out of it
looking confused
I stood there
no way, I thought
no fucking way
this guy just hit another car?
I stood there
nobody paid attention to me
I went inside and got my beer
came back out
I stood there
asked if the family needed a witness to the accident
the wife nodded no slightly
I stood there
then shrugged my shoulders
and got back into my car
I drove away laughing
and could hear the guy
cursing into his cell phone as I left
I rubbed my head
put on my blinker
turned right
went straight
turned on my blinker
turned right
then parked in my driveway
I was smiling
as I searched for my housekeys
and started to giggle
as I got inside
I closed the door
still shaking my head
relieved
because
somewhere
no matter what
there is always
somebody
having
a worse day
than you
10/03/05
You Are My Sunshine - My Only Sunshine. You Make Me Want To Poke My Fingertips Into My Eyes Until I Reach The Knuckles...
Stupid Internet.
For the last couple of hours tonight, I have seen many beautiful things because of your technological and very fresh, content-friendly existence.
This is why I hate you.
My OCD and sick curiousity loves you.
But the shit that I should've been writing - wants to eat your entrails like a German does sausages.
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