summertime

We would sit on the stoop for hours, even though it wasn't ours. The people from that building loved us anyhow, we were there so often. The black guy with the funny clothes who thought you were my sister and told us how bad every school in the city is. The old woman who thought skateboarding was 'suburban' and told me she worried about me getting hurt. Every monday night at The Silver Swan, and all the sleepovers afterwards. Drew, Jack, Petey, and Keith. Renting movies and smoking pot on your terrace. Falling asleep on my bed, in the middle of every movie and waking up at 4:30 in the morning just to call your parents and tell them you're sleeping over. Your house in New Jersey, and all the nights spent on the beach and on that same lifeguard post. My country house where we smoked pot with my mom and ate good food. Listening to reggae and Bob Dylan on your floor when it was so hot and we did too much cocaine.

Does this sound strange to you?

Olly olly oxen free!
Shout it out!

serpentor

Ethical calculus can be best described as the practical application of dynamic moral absolutism.

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

Determinism is the theory that every event, including human thought and cognition, is controlled by a precursor chain of events. Like a domino game, if you tip one over, the rest will tip over in a completely logical order. The philosophical proposition of determinism says that at the lowest and most fundamental level of existence, there exists no random events.

Emergence basically means that instead of having a chaotic soup of atoms and particles, we have instead ordered and non chaotic objects, that have a purpose beyond just existing as a soup of bound together particles.

Weak emergence explains that any such object in the universe can be reduced to, and completely understood, by examining and fully understanding the fundamental components of which the object is made of.

Strong emergence, on the other hand, predicts that we cannot do so, that there are things, like consciousness, that cannot be reduced, to say, the brain and the body.

If strong emergence exists, how can it be run by the laws of physics? And if it's not run by the laws of physics, how can we understand it, does it even matter? And more importantly, how can it interact with the laws of physics that the substance we know as matter is made of?

Weak emergence is like, if I take four equally sized sticks, I can arrange them to form a square. Here the square emerges on the interaction of the sticks.

Consciousness is also an emergent property, but the trick is that it's not best looked at as emerging for the interaction of neurons, but rather specialized sections of the brain interacting with one another thus yielding consciousness as a property of the reaction. These sections are composed of smaller 'offices' with their own degrees of specialization, and so on down til one reaches the neuron.

snoring puppies and kate moss

I have these intense bouts of profound and uncommon thoughts right before I fall asleep. I don't know if I should see a therapist or not, even though my family is so loyal to their pharma-psycho-therapy-impedimenta.

I wish I could speak Portuguese, it's a pretty language.

First class today.
Intro to sociology with Prof. Glenn Weinberg, uber-Jew.
Two pretty girls sat in front of me and it made me think about Tube Poker. I could make some money betting on stupid odds like that. The only two white girls in the class, both dressed in similar fashions, would no doubt sit next to each other. I didn't expect the Muslim girl to sit next to me, and when I spilled coffee on her dress I felt really bad, but I apologized profusely and she laughed and told me not to worry. It must be fairly awkward to be Muslim in a predominately non-Muslim school (or country for that matter) but there is a pretty large group of them, and I have to assume, for moral safety, that they're regular people, doing what regular people do.

I got asked twice for a cigarette, but only bummed once because the second person who asked me was a supremely obnoxious gutter punk and didn't warrant a loosey. In a city where a pack of cigarettes costs as much as a drink at an upper-crust bar, you can buy your own or stop smoking.

I'm going to eat White Castle and smoke a few joints, I got more classes tomorrow and an amazing weekend at Cornell to look forward to.

engines, axels, and wheels

You ever think about how much of our daily lives is dependent upon self-confidence? Or luck? Or chance? I don't understand how with all of these factors, and many I'm failing to mention, there could be a big, old, white guy with a beard, making all the final decisions; storms, wars, death, love, music, food...

It just don't compute, ya dig?

Where is God when I wake up at 7:30 in the morning and can't fall back asleep?
Where is God when I get into a fight with my girlfriend?
Where is God when I can't figure out a crossword puzzle answer?
Where is God when I run out of cigarettes and money?

I don't know why I write here, or why I write what I write. It doesn't make much sense at all. I don't let anybody read this, let alone tell anybody about it. I don't talk to anyone about words that I have written here. These are personal thoughts. These are fun wishes. I figure someday when I'm famous, dead, or both, someone will go through the endless information that has piled up on the internet, and stumble upon my humble blog and declare me a genius.

Hell is the impossibility of reason.

another year with nothin' to do

Found by searching Google the 28th of May 2006

Question: "Why?"
Hits: 2,840,000,000

Everybody wants to know why.

GET REALLY STONED AND LISTEN TO GAL COSTA IT'LL BLOW YOUR MIND
BUT SERIOUSLY SOMEONE SAVE ME I'M LISTENING TO CRYING BY ROY ORBISON

rescue

I'm hiding from my father's cancer.

I sort of patented this idea for a way of smoking pot in bed. It's a solo act unless you have a big bed and a huge blanket. Roll up a joint and get in bed. Pull the blanket over your whole body and tuck it in tight, there shouldn't be any holes for the smoke to get out. Grab a book or your laptop and put on some music, by the end of the joint you won't be able to see through all the smoke and you'll be too high to care. I'm sure I'm not the first person to do it, because if an asshole like me can think it up, some old stoner has probably been doing it for years.

I've been reading Kierkegaard recently, and although his ideas aren't exactly 'new' but aren't exactly 'old' either, he's pretty spot on. Honestly, subjectivity is truth. Yourself is the last and ultimate judge of the world. And it takes doubt to have faith, because what is knowledge without the power to think? For someone to really have faith in God, they would also have to doubt that God exists; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought, without which the faith would have no real substance. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a television or a chair exists, when you're seeing it and feeling it. In the same way, to have true faith in God is to know that you have no perceptual access to God, and yet still have faith in God. (drug trips don't count, because tricking your mind with chemicals does not count as a spiritual experience.)

Someone told me I was weird last week.

Slightly amused

A fellow who was a constant worrier visited Charles A. Tindley one day in 1916. After listening a while, Tindley replied, "My advice to you is put all your troubles in a sack, take 'em to the Lord, and leave 'em there."

There are these invisible orbits around us all. I am afraid of heights. I have not changed much since I was young. I have certainly grown, not grown up. Like an addict, I'm cursed in a good way, I've done it so long, I'm not sure how not to. Everything is shortcuts and text messages.

When I was 12 years old I dropped acid. I took 3 tabs in an East Hampton Community College dorm room with a bunch of college kids passing around a joint. The tabs were being kept in an old fish food container and I was hesitant but Zach said he would do them too so I jumped in head first. Zach's sister drove us back to his house and while having a cigarette in the driveway, the first wave of the trip hit me violently. I saw shadows dance and trees bend. I watched a few hours of an Undressed marathon on MTV. I walked around the edge of the pool and tried not to fall in. In the middle of the trip I got hungry, and as I was eating pizza, Zach's mom walked in. She asked what I was doing and I told her I was eating. She told me to go to bed. She had no idea what I was going through. Needless to say, her unexpected entrance into my trip had landed her the unfortunate role as a demon from the darkest depths of hell. When she left the room I was so confused I forgot about the pizza. I sat on Zach's front steps and my legs were shaking and I was freaking out. I fell asleep at 7 in the morning, and slept almost the entire next day.

wild days and nights of a young hood

Does it take practice to be honest with yourself? Does it take time to repair something that continually breaks down? If I am aware of my own thoughts and feelings, why do they seem far away? Where's the break between reality and imagination? If the only reality we can know is what is put right in front of us, then everything that is imaginable is not imagination, but reality. Cold, hard fact. If what I see through my eyes is consciousness, then when I look away, it doesn't exist in the way I think it does. Things solidify when you bring them into your own realm of consciousness, meaning that anything else is just a buffer. When you bring things out of the constant blur, they materialize. Things happen. Waves crash. Planes crash. Birds chirp. People die and are reborn right before our very eyes, multiple times a day.

Play it cool, Sam, play it real cool.

Everything happens for a reason, and things work themselves out in the end, right?

Why do some things make total sense and other things seem totally foreign? Do we really have brain power? Am I limited by the strength of my thoughts and my consciousness? No one wants to think like that. I don't want to be a cog in some huge machine, but I don't want to be a random occurrence, totally unique and singular. I don't want to be explained vis a vis scientific blather; I don't want to be described as a complex organism made up of tiny cells that don't think, just do. I feel hopelessly programmed and out of tune. Am I just one iota of anything relatively important in this big sandbox? I don't want to be.

If we are totally independent from one another, why are there so many of us? If there is truly nothing holding us all together, then what's the point of doing anything for personal moral integrity? Beyond that, why did we even need to invent moral integrity? I feel desperately disconnected.

Never, my love, never.
I don't know and I guess that I just don't know.
I have made a big decision.
I bought this incredible compilation of the 200 best songs from the 1960's. It's got a lot of classics and then some.
I wish I was born 1000 years ago.

pietro crespi and the sad waltzes

I feel like its almost too close to home. I just feel like I've been given way too many chances and I'm so undeserving of any attention I receive. I don't know what to do. I'm confused. How many times can I fuck up? Let's start counting.

If I had known it was harmless, I would've killed it myself.

One of these days, I'll make some money and buy myself those things that I want, like acrylic paint, and acoustic guitar strings, maybe a new bicycle seat for when I ride over to your house each night. One of these days, I'll get a real job one that actually pays, like my dad had. You know my father, the bartender, used to wear a suit to work, before hitting the drink, the old man used to do a lot of things.

whatever it is you think you are, you aren't.
a good friend
unique
well read
good looking
smart
well, now you know.
I hate to be the one, to bear such bad news, I know it hurts to hear, but its true
you dont mean anything to anyone but me
well, now you know.
free beer and basement shows dont mean you made it
its what you do
not who you were
what you wore
where you been
whoever you think is watching you dance from across the room
they arent
if anything they feel sorry for you, because you try so hard
i know its hurts to hear, but its the truth
so you might as well hear it from a friend
you're a has-been
that never was
i know its mean to say, but its something ive been meaning to say to you
for a while
you're a has-been
that never was
and won't be

cheap white wine

I wonder how much it takes to cut someone down to their stalks. I mean really take em down a notch or two. I've got half price on strange trips and bad timing. Three out of four doctors agree that stress causes many common diseases and illnesses. Outside influence counts for most of the decisions you make on a day to day basis.

I don't like being told whose side I'm on

and I don't like being wrongly accused

there are decisions you make and there are decisions you accidently fall into. Sometimes you do things and you don't know why you did it, or you can't remember your logic at the time of the decision. It's kind complicated, I mean, I'm sure theres some scientific explanation for it. Some synapse in your left temporal lobe explains the whole fucking thing. I'm sure.

I think people started thinking when the realized they could start thinking. The law of consciousness (I better get credit for it). When you think about it, it's not easy to keep from just wondering out of life. It's like someones always leaving the door open to the next world. If you aren't paying attention you can just walk thourgh it.

what a happy place

press people, here's an easy quotable.
"the cat in the hat thought it was phat when art rap
never got to make its comeback
'cause rap is a gap add
and the ghosts of sugar hill seem to support that."

the best historians sleep on benches

poor guy

LAKEWOOD — Actor Vincent Margera, known by his nickname Don Vito in movie roles, and uncle of skateboarder Bam Margera, was held without bond Saturday on a charge of sexual assault on a child.

Margera, 50, was arrested Friday night after a skateboarding event in this Denver suburb after being accused of two incidents of sexual assault on a child, said Lakewood city spokeswoman Stacie Oulton. She said the charges involved inappropriate touching.

The event was at the Colorado Mills Mall.

The arrest was first reported by ManiaTV.com. Vincent Margera came to Colorado to film promotional material for the company. ManiaTV.com founder Drew Massey said Margera had finished his work before the arrest.

Bam Margera did not come on the trip.

not for sale to minors

pike and pine

oh yes, his mexican roots gave him footing in the badlands when he had to run from the bulls back in the days before hundred dollar bills. his mama was a cowpokin' bitch, if you know what i mean. his daddy ran off like the rest of em, but he left behind a stinkin' pile of mean old bear turds for his sons to pick up along the road of life. whats that old sayin'? To never have been born is the greatest boon of all? yeah, shit, his brothers taught him how to be a man before therapy was a fad and before botox. hallelujah, they used to sing high to the rafters, and oh lord was it a fine day. he had no spray painted rv and no lifelong dreams. afternoons with his pictures and tea waiting for the sun to go down.

like the lion Hercules killed

id·i·o·syn·cra·sy
n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies

1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.



those funny little things, like why I think the opening credits to some movie remind me of Jurassic Park and crying when the TRex gets attacked by the raptors because he was only trying to protect the people and after saving them his punishment for eating the other people (which he could be forgiven for because hes only a dinosaur) was sort of like karma.

funny funny little things