This is what freedom looks like.

Allow me to provide a cynical attitude towards the so-called civilized world’s supportive responses to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.  These revolts, portrayed as grass roots movements of the people in response to repressive leaders, have been hailed by governmental PR folks as noble exercises in liberty.  In sanctimonious tones, America’s spokesmen pledge our lip service support to these embattled people as they struggle against armed and licensed to kill oppositions.

Not being intimately acquainted with the motivations or politics behind either movement, the only response I feel appropriate for me to have is that I’m guardedly glad that these people are standing up for themselves.  However, it strikes me as fairly ridiculous that America seems to be hitching its moral wagons to Tunisia and Egypt without actually doing anything to help.  Just as sports fans use the Royal We in describing their favorite teams, quite a few spectators of democracy seem to have the attitude that a victory for the people of Tunisia and Egypt is a victory for lovers of democracy everywhere.

I’m sorry to burst the bubble of those whose biggest worry in life is who wins the Super Bowl, but unless you’re on the field, you will never win a game.  Likewise, it’s easy to cheer on the cause of democracy and the advancement of civilization in impoverished countries when you’re not actually there doing the work.  And as great as many things are about America, one of its greatest faults is that its people have become a nation largely comprised of spectators.

I’m no different.  I remember watching the madness that followed Iran’s presidential elections in 2009, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a pretty sketchy re-election.  People lost their goddamn minds and took to the street, risking injury and death against government forces and deputized goon squads – and sometimes getting it.  I followed all the chaos, awe-struck, wondering why this explosion of democracy never happens in America.  You know, like in 2000, when our own divinely ordained doofus won the presidency under dubious means.

But that’s not our style anymore.  Activism has been outsourced.  Much of the reason for that is because we’re very safe (and we have all of that delicious safety to lose).  Most citizens of the world’s most advanced countries don’t live in fear of cops bursting through their doors and gunning them down.  Oh, they’re repressed, but they’re not violently repressed.  The groupthink required to spark these massive demonstrations is pretty much incapable of getting fired up over vague concepts like wage slavery, economic warfare, bailout heiresses, censorship, and corporate mismanagement – and it’s even more difficult to get people to stand up if they first have to put down their computers.  It’s hard to get people into the streets without a visible atrocity – and even then, how many of us watched Columbine, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the BP oil spill as though they were fictional news channel sitcoms?  I know I did.

Another reason why Americans don’t take to the streets and howl for liberty might be because the cops would call it a riot and club, tear gas, and tazer all the protesters until it was squashed (see: WTO Protests, Seattle, 1999).  Just like what’s happening to those citizens of those fine countries the free world is currently rallying behind.  Democracy is a fine idea, but a government’s a government, power is power, and job security often masquerades as national security.  I’ll say this until I die: the main difference between good and evil as they’re commonly defined is opportunity.

American culture proclaims that one revolt was good enough.  On the subject of national misbehavior, America is the equivalent of that old hippie who talks your ear off about how he fought The Man back in the 60s, though these days he spends his days crusading online for the legalization of pot.  We all think we’re rebels, with our countless ways of self-customization that tell that big, uncaring world that we are different, we are special.  But (fully anticipating the English majors) democracy and freedom – two quite opposite concepts, actually – are meant to be verbs, not adjectives, not static possessions.  They aren’t found in the spoiled and often psychotic posturing of wannabe Founding Fathers like those you find in the Tea Party.  They’re not found on the computer screens of those sanctimonious lefties who feel that all it takes to bring reason and light to the world is a well-placed Tweet blasting said Tea Party or some other conservative sacred cow.  Yes, speech is a vital part of exerting one’s freedom, but pointless, entitled, and actionless speech is often worse than silence.

If there is any aspect in our sanitized world that holds the exciting danger of real revolt, I’ve found it in the recent phenomenon of internet whistleblowing personified by Wikileaks.  I love that for quite a few of us who live in a country where free speech is such an unquestioned right that corporations were allowed to enact a hostile takeover of it, websites that dare to call bullshit on the objectionable excesses of those in power are somehow beyond the pale.  Love them or hate them, the people running these sites are the new poster children of First World revolt, putting themselves in real danger for a cause they believe in.  And if this phenomenon becomes a subculture of leaderless, permanent vigilance, so much the better.

Problem is, it’s easier and more encouraged in America’s modern culture not to be this brave.  Instead, it’s easier to jettison our convictions when they become inconvenient, when we clock in for work, when we’re put out in public, when there’s a chance someone – anyone – will disapprove.  As much as we bitch, there’s such an air of resigned depression in our culture that not only recognizes but tolerates the banality of evil.  That’s a sure sign of a civilization’s decline.

January 31, 2011
Categories: Y Marks the Spot . . Author: Y . Comments: Leave a comment

I’ve referred to my stretch of travels around the country last month as The December Experiment because I tried something to change my routine, in order to see if I could develop better habits in my day to day life.  Six months of ungainful employment and the resulting cabin fever led me to some rather pathetic behaviors.  There were a few video game marathons during that time, but worse still were the days, even weeks, in which I did nothing but channel surf the internet, not looking at anything important or even specific, yet not knowing what else to do.  I developed this junkie habit while surviving a period of incredible abandonment and loneliness, which makes it all the more dumb that it persists in a house full of people, years later.

So the main element of The December Experiment was this: I’d get all my writing work done, turned in, and posted before heading out, and then I’d leave my computer at home.  Which I accomplished.  I wrote up one month’s worth of journalism in a week’s time, and each time I left Washington I was largely technology-free, save my electronic book, iPod, and camera – all of which had little potential for sloth.  I felt pretty good about myself.

After suffering the holiday scorch of Phoenix, I was excited to return to Wisconsin: for my friends, for the snow, and for the ability to drink like a free citizen of the world.  There are a few things I don’t miss about the Midwest, but the nigh-Irish drinking culture isn’t one of those things.  Living in Washington is pretty goddamn wonderful, but to its discredit, this state HATES its liquor.  Getting a vodka screwdriver out here feels like undertaking the Odyssey.  Any intoxicant not beer or wine can only be sold in state-run liquor stores with Jesusy hours of operation and prices double those of equivalent products sold in Wisconsin.  Perhaps I’ve had it too good for too long, but it feels blasphemous to drop twenty bucks for a tub of cheap vodka.

Worse still is the abomination I’ve discovered here known as the Beer Bar, in which liquor is shunned outright.  For those like me who can’t so much as sip a beer without gagging, this institution makes bar hopping an exercise in proper planning that honestly isn’t worth the trouble.

There was a voting initiative in Washington this year which would have cut out all this hateful bullshit, but it was defeated on the strength of baby crusaders – terrorized parents who seem oblivious that the legal drinking age is 21 and not 5 – as well as, appropriately enough, the beer industry.  Maybe I could get vodka easier if I could get a medical clearance for it.

Thus, after flying into Milwaukee and spending a few days lurking in my mom’s east Wisconsin Fortress of Solitude, I rode into La Crosse on Christmas Weekend, ready to flail, to make a fool of myself, and to suffer Valhalla-grade hangovers.

On the Thursday afternoon of my arrival, I found the town exactly as I left it, which felt both reassuring and depressing.  Being too early to immediately dash to the bars, I met up with one of my friends, and we accompanied his kid to Chuck E. Cheese.

Having recently been reacquainted with Arizona’s weapon fetishist gun laws, I picked up on a strange sign at the exit of the kid’s restaurant, one which expressly forbade bringing guns into Chuck E. Cheese.  No shit, says I.  Dumber still, however, was the advertised punishment for violating this law – a stiff charge of trespassing.  So what happens if a person actually fires a gun in this Chuck E. Cheese?  Disorderly conduct?  Jaywalking?  First-degree Boys Will Be Boys?

But this night was not the time for philosophy; this was the time for action.  And soon I found myself in my ancestral downtown, slithering down from Sobriety Summit.  I had a good time – and an even better one during my traditional drunken Christmas Night festivities, in which my friends and I watch the original Star Wars Trilogy and get sloppy – but boozing in Wisconsin hadn’t been the legendary adventure I had hoped it to be.  There weren’t any stories to come from Christmas weekend that were any better than the ones I already have.  Instead, there was a lot of calm, and low-key reunions, hanging around a small group of friends, and me wandering around town by myself, killing time without agenda or that awkward onslaught of catching up that invariably accompanies homecomings.  Which was perfectly fine.

I was returned to the Fortress of Solitude a week later, where I spent another week in comfortable limbo before going back to my already structureless existence.  And it was there where The December Experiment, well, it didn’t fail, but it wasn’t a wild success.

The other side of the Experiment, once the mindless slog of the internet was cut out, was to fill that void with something more productive.  I had brought notebooks and journals, ready to fill page upon page with new ideas for all the writing projects I plan to do.  Yet for most of my vacation, those pages went blank.  Mostly, this was because I’m very easily distracted, and wherever I was, I was rarely in a place where I could block everyone out and get to serious work.  My mom’s place, for instance, was a bit cluttered at the time, and there weren’t many places untouched by a running television.  It left me with an unhealthy knowledge of both Frasier and The Nanny, two TV shows whose theme songs will now never escape my brain.  It was easier to play video games and ignore the constant static than actually work.

But things didn’t end badly.  On the last day before leaving Wisconsin, I developed a code of conduct which I’ve been attempting to turn into the new habit ever since.  It’s coming together, not with the unrealistic and easily frustrated flashes of epiphany and revelation, but with a slow assembly that, given time, could become the new routine.  December Experiment, meet the January Plan.

And the Sea-Tac Airport's lovely Vomit Station

January 25, 2011
Categories: Y Marks the Spot . . Author: Y . Comments: 1 Comment

Leaving Washington - the rare and noble Lubemobile.

Despite being broke, I managed to spend the last month riding parental goodwill throughout the country, attempting to cure my growing insomnia, frustration, and sloth. These travels took me through a lot of airports. Luckily, I never got groped by any TSA agents – but I did play Seven Minutes in Heaven with a baggage handler. At least I didn’t have to take my shoes off.

My first trip took me to the rocky deserts of Phoenix, where I hung out with my dad and two sisters in the unholy 80 degrees of December. As I flew over the city, I came to a realization that the main difference between Phoenix and the Middle East – both barren, highly conservative regions led by corrupt officials who have at best a heavy disdain for egalitarian human rights – is swimming pools. Maybe I was simply flying over a good neighborhood, but every other house had a backyard that was half turquoise with irrigated water. It got me to thinking: maybe to create peace in the Middle East, we should give the people there swimming pools.

I saw a few strange things while in Phoenix that had nothing to do with the local culture: a television remote that had Braille on it, a basketball game on the Cartoon Network, a video of the Metrodome caving in from a Minnesota blizzard. But the strangest thing I saw on this trip was my dad.

In all his glory.

My old man is a professional gambler, and like all professional gamblers he aspires to be one of two people: Kenny Rogers or Confucius. Like most gamblers, he was never a source of family stability – or anything not resembling sloth – so I found it weird that my old man was now the caretaker of a new puppy which had the horrible name of Baby. Despite having years ago sent me a weird email in which he considered getting some tropical fish to fill some void in his life, this is the first living creature he has been responsible for since my parents got divorced 13 years ago. Surprisingly, he seemed to enjoy the responsibility – though I fear that the dog will get less attention once it gets older and less cute.

Odder still was some of the shit that came out of his mouth while I was there. My dad is one of those strange and outlandish people who doesn’t get how he could have strange and outlandish children (and all three of us are). He derides my warped sense of humor, yet a decade ago called me in the middle of the night, stoned and telling me terrible jokes about cow tits and poor Mexicans. During the brief period I lived with him in Phoenix, he got stoned (again) and started freaking out about how amazing the live-action Flintstones movie was. In another late-night phone call, he told me that he signed me up to be a salesman for some acai berry energy drink because (he said) he thought it was a fantastic product. But no, I’m the weird one.

One of the main topics of conversation during this trip was my dad’s shut-in gambler girlfriend, an old oxygen-huffing gold digger who had dated my old man on and off for the better part of a decade. The recent drama involved this prune suckering my dad into buying her a phone, following that up with some ungrateful shit-talking. My sisters and I ganged up on him, ultimately convincing him to get back the phone and kick her to the curb, but he weakly defended his troubled relationship by calling her “the hottest 64 year old on oxygen.”

He followed up that gem by diving one of my sisters and I around town, ultimately taking us to eat at a well known Chinese restaurant he kept mistakenly referring to as PG Chang’s. On the ride there, he proclaimed his faith in a god of some sort before loudly pondering the possibility of what his life would have been like if he was gay. Um… I guess that since I owe my existence to the fact that he boned my mom, I should say… thanks?

He would follow this up by saying that if he had been gay, he would have gone for our slick as oil waiter. After a few drinks, he got weird and started talking about his marriages. Of my sister’s mother, my old man gloated that he had fooled her into thinking that he wasn’t one of the biggest potheads in town, which seemed kind of sketchy to say. Of my own, he bragged: “When we first met, your mom and I had a lot of sex!”

It was at this moment when my selfish gratitude for my dad’s heterosexuality began to wane.

The Singing Cowboy helped, though.

The old man went on to suggest that I write his biography, but, in so many words – and no doubt never having read a word of anything I’ve written – he wanted me to tone down my weirdness and make it more accessible. The first hitch came quickly, as he recounted his side of the story of when I got kicked out of a casino for pissing in an empty parking lot and embarrassing him in front of all his fellow gamblers – conveniently forgetting the part of the story in which I watched him play poker for 14 hours straight and would have rammed my head through a wall to get out of the casino. Oh well; a modern classic fails.

I like my dad, and we had a good time in total, but it helps if there’s a slight barrier between us. As such, I’m glad I stayed at my local sister’s place, where I slept on her gigantic couch and beat back sleeplessness. And after our time was over, the old man took me to the airport, and after a few days at home in Washington, I set out again and exchanged the desert for the snow.

January 17, 2011
Categories: Y Marks the Spot . . Author: Y . Comments: Leave a comment