WINNING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE...
...is apparently something I don't do too well.

But I'll tell you what...I often feel like a man without a country.

I have two loving parents who are still together in a country with two out of three marriages end in divorce batting average. They were middle-middle class when I dropped out of the chute and were upper middle class by the time I struck out on my own...the middle class, which to my eyes is rapidly disappearing. I exceled at and had a decent interest in academics, arts, and athletics at school, which is a seldom seen phenomena. I moved around a lot growing up which gave me both a desire to see and experience new places and people, but also fostered the occasional feeling of impermanence...and from that I found that often times the people from the place I moved to had little love for the place I just moved from (ie. the people in Michigan frequently accused my Texan brethren of being rednecks...and the people from Florida hated all the snotty "snowbirds" who came down from Michigan..and so on).

I haven't had and don't watch television with any regularity...I see it as a tool for a great capacity to educate and inform, but seldom seems to get used that way. I don't go see most of the blockbuster popular movies...well, because they look like garbage from the get-go in a lot of cases (I don't mind brainless fun...but soulless brainless fun is even worse). I don't listen to most popular music...usually for similar reasons...but modern day pop and hiphop couldn't conceivably get more played out than a lot of what's on the radio. I hate advertising...even most of the "cute/good" ones. And while I'm an adherent to the internet...which again is conceivably a great tool..it falls prey to all of the above and then some (ie. so much information, art, and literature to be tapped into from all over the world...but most people just prefer to watch videos of people doing stupid stunts or watching their pets do silly things).

I don't really care for Los Angeles...although it is a bizarre sociological experiment on a grand scale in really bad cheap architecture. I wouldn't go back to Michigan as I feel there's nothing there for me. I could never really get in to Florida. And, I'm not feeling very Texas right now...but more because I'm not sure how much more I can grow there. A lot of the places in between that I've been to have been nice, but I've never gotten a strong enough vibe off any of them to actually move. I don't have nearly enough money to go to Europe, Asia, or Australia...and ain't entirely sure what I'd be going there for (...except maybe to get into adventures à la Highway to Heaven).

It's not just the city exactly either...while I love the principles that America was founded on...I don't always like where I see it going (see TV, internet, etc. above). I don't understand the weird dislike we have for learning other languages and cultures even though we pride ourselves on being a melting pot. I don't particularly find the policies or rhetoric of either side of our political machine interesting or involving...or even effective on anything. I don't like our obsession with celebrity that's coupled with our insane desire to tear them down. This list just goes on and on. Most of all, I don't like that we seem to have lost our vision for a future and progress...and have instead opted for complacency (oh...and voyeurism).

(It goes along with this lax casualness with respect and manners and this deluge of incorrectly aimed compassion that the world's flooded with...but that's a whole other issue...another time)

This isn't just merely negativity either (I'm willing to bet that Chris Crocker's "Leave Britney Alone" got more hits than any one page on Wikipedia). I sort of wish it were. I try to be friendly and polite with people as I see them on the streets, run into them in stores, sit next to them on airplanes...what-have-you... I certainly don't harangue them with a diatribe about all of the above and then some. I try to give them a smile, nod, and wish them well. Unfortunately, it ends up mostly being my friends and you dear reader, who gets the brunt of the diatribe of disonance that is my experience as I experience it.

I probably owe you an apology and a beer for all that.

As it is, some people are running for the hills...and I'm here to say...if you're feeling that notion, go ahead and run...

It's how I see things. It's my interpretation. Perchance some good fortune in my future might change it...but I certainly don't think I'm delusional...and it's certainly not just me...it's stuff I see in the news...on the internet...from discussions with friends. And call me Capt. Elitist, but I generally don't have the capacity to just accept it all for what it is and think it's all going to be ok (...I'm sure more than enough people thought that about Nazi-ism amongst other mass bad ideas...extreme example on one hand...but I think what's going on now is even more dangerous...).

Besides...I already had someone tell me I was going to die unmourned and unloved...haha...hell...I'm ready to deal with that if I have to...

Cheers.