SAINT DICK
Every generation wants to be the last. Every generation hates the next trend in music they can't understand. We hate to give up those reins of our culture; To find our own music playing in elevators. The ballad for our revolution, turned into background music for a television commercial. To find our generation's clothes and hair suddenly retro. Me? I just want to be what killed the dinosaurs.
week in photos
ideas worth spreading
6-stringer tips
vice mag
bible
Angelina
Ashley
Alvin
Beatrice
Brandon
clarence
dudley
Fatty shaun
grace
jose
'mad
steff
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Fall childrenposted by deadspace on 8:50 AM |
Friday, June 12, 2009
Because beauty is power the way money is power the way a loaded gun is power.— Chuck Palahniuk
posted by deadspace on 9:23 AM |
posted by deadspace on 9:16 AM |
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
20 of the sexiest ugly people you'll ever meet.posted by deadspace on 8:42 AM |
Monday, June 01, 2009
posted by deadspace on 7:46 AM |
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
NIN 09 tour, with Tom Morello. Right now I can only sit back and hope, and wish I were there.Everyday is exactly the same
posted by deadspace on 8:06 AM |
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
posted by deadspace on 8:42 AM |
Monday, May 18, 2009
Why can’t we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn’t work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say goodbye. I hate goodbyes. I know what I need; I need more hellos.— Charlie Brown comics
Looking back, I do have lots of quotes. They're just sayings I might live by, sayings that struck a chord at one point, or just sayings I subscribe to. I take no credit for the quotes or pictures I put on here unless they are my own.
Here's another anyway -
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Have a great day.
posted by deadspace on 6:37 AM |
Friday, May 15, 2009
Is it possible, finally, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close are we able to come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?
—
- Haruki Murakami
posted by deadspace on 1:01 PM |
posted by deadspace on 12:53 PM |
A good photographer must love life more than he does photography.
— Joel Strasser
posted by deadspace on 12:42 PM |
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Hippie aliens. Haha...posted by deadspace on 12:46 PM |
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
posted by deadspace on 6:37 AM |
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
ObsoleteA Story by Mr. Whittier
For their last family vacation, Eve’s dad herded them all into the car and said to get comfortable. This
trip could take a couple hours, maybe more.
They had snacks, cheese popcorn and cans of soda and barbecue potato chips. Eve’s brother, Larry,
and she sat in the back seat with their Boston terrier, Risky. In the front seat, her dad turned the key to
start the engine. He turned the ventilation to high and opened all the electric windows. Sitting next to him,
Eve’s future ex-stepmom, Tracee, said, “Hey, kids, listen to this . . .”
Tracee waved a government pamphlet calledIt’s Great to Emigrate. She flipped it open, bending the
spine backward to crack it, and started to read out loud. “Your blood uses hemoglobin,” she read, “to
carry oxygen molecules from your lungs to the cells in your heart and brain.”
Maybe six months ago, everybody got this same pamphlet in the mail from the Surgeon General. Tracee
slipped her feet out of her sandals and put her toes up on the dashboard. Still reading out loud, she said,
“Hemoglobin actuallyprefers to bond with carbon monoxide.” The way she talked, as if her tongue were
too big, it was supposed to make her sound girly. Tracee read, “As you breathe car exhaust, more and
more of your hemoglobin combines with carbon monoxide, becoming what’s called
carboxyhemoglobin.”
Larry was feeding cheese popcorn to Risky, getting the bright-orange cheese powder all over the car
seat between him and Eve.
Her dad switched on the radio, saying, “Who wants music?” He looked at Larry in the rearview mirror
and said, “You’re going to make that dog sick.”
“Great,” Larry said, and fed Ricky another piece of bright-orange popcorn. “The last thing I’ll see is the
inside of the garage door, and the last song I’ll hear will be something by the Carpenters.”
But there’s nothing to hear. There’s been nothing on the radio for a week.
Poor Larry, poor goth rocker Larry, with black makeup smeared around his white-powdered face, his
fingernails painted black and his long stringy hair dyed black, compared to real people with their eyes
pecked out by birds, real dead people with their lips peeling back from their big dead teeth, compared to
real death, Larry could just be a really sad-faced clown.
Poor Larry, he’d stayed in his room for days after the finalNewsweek cover story. The headline, big and
bold, it said: “It’s Hip to Be Dead!”
All those years of Larry and his band dressing like zombies or vampires in black velvet and dragging
dirty shrouds, stomping around graveyards all night wrapped in rosary necklaces and capes, all that effort
wasted. Now even soccer moms were emigrating. Old church ladies were emigrating. Lawyers wearing
business suits were emigrating.
The last issue ofTime magazine, the cover story said: “Death Is the New Life.”
Now poor Larry, he’s stuck with Eve and his dad and Tracee, the whole family emigrating together in a
four-door Buick parked in a suburban split-level ranch-house garage. All of them breathing carbon
monoxide and eating cheese popcorn with their dog.
Still reading, Tracee says, “As less hemoglobin is available to carry oxygen, your cells begin to suffocate
and die.”
There was still television on some channels, but all they played was the video sent back by the space
mission to Venus.
It was the stupid space program that had started all this. The manned mission to explore the planet
Venus. The crew sent back their video of the planet surface, the face of Venus as this garden paradise.
After that, the accident wasn’t because of chipped insulation panels or broken O-rings or pilot error. It
wasn’t an accident. The crew just chose not to deploy their landing parachutes. Fast as a meteor, the
outer hull of their spacecraft burst into flame. Static and—The End.
The same way that World War II gave us the ballpoint pen, the space program had proved the human
soul was immortal. What everybody called the Earth was just a processing station that all souls had to
pass through. A step in some kind of refining process. Like the cracking tower used to turn crude oil into
gasoline or kerosene. As soon as human souls had been refined on Earth, then we would all incarnate on
the planet Venus.
In the big factory of perfecting human souls, the Earth was a kind of tumbler. The same as the kind
people use to polish rocks. All souls come here to rub the sharp edges off each other. All of us, we’re
meant to be worn smooth by conflict and pain of every kind. To be polished. There was nothingbad
about this. This wasn’t suffering, it waserosion. It was just another, a basic, an important step in the
refining process.
Sure, it sounded nuts, but there was the video sent back by the space mission that crashed itself on
purpose.
On television, all they played was the video. As the mission’s landing vehicle orbited lower and lower,
dipping down inside the cloud layers covering the planet, the astronauts sent back this footage of people
and animals living as friends, everyone smiling so hard their faces seemed to glow. In the video the
astronauts sent back, everyone was young. The planet was a Garden of Eden. The landscape of forests
and oceans, flower meadows and towering mountains, it was always springtime, the government said.
After that, the astronauts refused to deploy the parachutes. They drove straight down, pow, into the
flowers and sweet lakes of Venus. All that was left was this grainy, hazy few minutes of video they sent
back. What looked like fashion models wearing glittery tunics in a science-fiction future. Men and women
with long legs and hair, sprawled, eating grapes on the steps of marble temples.
It was heaven, but with sex and booze and God’s complete permission.
It was a world where the Ten Commandments were: Party. Party. Party.
“Beginning with headache and nausea,” Tracee reads from her government pamphlet, “symptoms include
a faster and faster pulse as your heart tries to get oxygen to your dying brain.”
Eve’s brother, Larry, he never really adjusted to the idea of eternal life.
Larry used to have this band, called Wholesale Death Factory. He had this one groupie slut called
Jessika. They used to tattoo each other with a sewing needle dipped in black ink. They were so
cutting-edge, Larry and Jessika, the very margin of the marginalized. Then death got to be so mainstream.
Only it wasn’t suicide anymore. Now it was called “emigration.” People’s dead, rotting bodies aren’t
corpses, not anymore. The stinking, bloated piles of them, heaped around the base of each tall building,
or poisoned and sprawled on bus-stop benches, now these were called “luggage.” Just left-behind
luggage.
The way people had always looked at New Year’s Eve as some kind of line drawn in the sand. Some
kind of new beginning that didn’t ever really happen. That’s how people saw emigration, but only if
everyone emigrated.
Here was actual proof of life after life. According to government estimates, as many as 1,760,042
human souls were already freed and living a party lifestyle on the planet Venus. The rest of humanity
would have to live on through a long series of lifetimes, of suffering, before they were refined enough to
emigrate.
Going around, eroding in the Big Rock Tumbler.
Then the government had its big brainstorm:
If all of humanity died at once, then there would be no wombs and no way to reincarnate souls here on
Earth.
If humanity went extinct, then we’d all emigrate to Venus. Enlightened or not.
But . . . if only one breeding couple was left behind, the birth of a child could call back a soul. From just
a handful of people, the whole process could start again.
Until a couple days ago, you could watch on television as the emigration movement dealt with people
who were still noncompliant. You could watch the backward populations that weren’t enrolled in the
movement, you could see them being forced to emigrate by Emigration Assistance Squads, dressed all in
white, carrying clean white machine guns. Whole screaming villages, carpet-bombed to relocate them to
the next step in the process. Nobody was going to let a pack of Bible-waving hillbillies keep the rest of
us here, here on dirty old planet Earth, the less-than-hip planet, not when we could all hurry on to the
next great step in our spiritual evolution. So the hillbillies were poisoned to save them. The African
savages were nerve-gassed. The Chinese hordes were nuked.
We’d pushed fluoride and literacy on them, we could push emigration.
If just one hillbilly couple stayed behind, you could become their filthy, ignorant baby. If just one
rice-paddy band of Third World tribesmen didn’t emigrate, your precious soul could be called back to
live—swatting flies and eating spoiled mush studded with brown rat-turds under their sweating-hot Asian
sun.
And, yes, sure, this was a gamble. Getting everyone to Venus, together. But now that death was dead,
humanity really had nothing to lose.
That was the headline on the last issue of theNew York Times: “Death Is Dead.”
USA Todaycalled it “The Death of Death.”
Death had been debunked. Like Santa Claus. Or the Tooth Fairy.
Now life was the only option . . . but now it felt like an endless . . . eternal . . . perpetual . . . trap.
Larry and his rocker slut, Jessika, had been planning to run away. Hide out. Now that death had been
co-opted by the mainstream, Larry and Jessika wanted to rebel by staying alive. They’d have a litter of
kids. They’d fuck up the spiritual evolution of all humanity. But then Jessika’s folks had spiked the milk in
her breakfast cereal with ant poison. The End.
After that, Larry went downtown every day to hunt for painkillers in the abandoned pharmacies. Taking
Vicodins and breaking windows, Larry said, that was enough enlightenment for him. All day, he’d be
stealing cars and driving them through abandoned china shops, coming home stoned and dusted with the
white talcum powder from exploded driver-side air bags.
Larry said he wanted to make sure this world was good and used up before he moved on to the next
one.
As his little sister, Eve, told him, Grow up. She told him Jessika wasn’t the last slutty goth rocker chick
in the world.
And Larry had just looked at her, stoned and blinking in slow motion, and he’d said, “Yeah, Eve. Jesse
pretty much was . . .”
Poor Larry.
That’s why, when their dad said to pile into the car, Larry only shrugged and climbed in. He got in the
back seat, carrying Risky, their Boston terrier. He didn’t bother to fasten his seat belt. They weren’t
going anywhere. Not anywhere physical.
Here was the New Age spiritual equivalent of any fix-all idea, from the metric system to the euro. To
polio vaccinations . . . Christianity . . . reflexology . . . Esperanto . . .
And it couldn’t have come at a better time in history. Pollution, overpopulation, disease, war, political
corruption, sexual perversion, murder, and drug addiction . . . Maybe they weren’t any worse than
they’d been in the past, but now we had television carping about them. A constant reminder. A culture of
complaint. Of bitch, bitch, bitch . . . Most people would never admit it, but they’d been bitching since
they were born. As soon as their head popped out into that bright delivery-room light, nothing had been
right. Nothing had been as comfortable or felt so good.
Just the effort it took to keep your stupid physical body alive, just the finding food and cooking it and
dishwashing, the keeping warm and bathing and sleeping, the walking and bowel movements and ingrown
hairs, it was all getting to be too much work.
Sitting in the car, as the vents blow smoke in her face, Tracee reads, “As your heart beats faster and
faster, your eyes close. You lose consciousness and black out . . .”
Eve’s dad and Tracee, they’d met at the gym and started doing couples bodybuilding. They won a
contest, posing together, and got married to celebrate. The only reason we didn’t emigrate months ago is,
they were still at their contest peak. Never had they looked so good, felt so strong. It broke their hearts
to find out that having a body—even a body of ripped, defined muscle with only 2 percent body
fat—was like riding a mule while the rest of humanity was zipping around in Lear jets. It was smoke
signals compared to cell phones.
Most days, Tracee would still be pedaling her stationary bicycle, alone in the gym’s big empty aerobics
room, pedaling to disco music while she yelled encouragement to a spinning class not there anymore. In
the weight room, Eve’s dad would be lifting weights, but limited to machines or lighter free weights, since
no one was around to spot him. Worse than that, there was nobody around for Dad and Tracee to
compete against. Nobody for them to pose for. Nobody for them to beat.
Eve’s dad used to tell this joke:
How many bodybuilders does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
It takes four. One bodybuilder to screw in the bulb, and three others to watch and say, “Really, dude,
you lookhuge !”
With her dad and Tracee, it took hundreds of people applauding, watching them up onstage, pose and
flex. Still, you couldn’t deny it, no matter how perfected with vitamins and collagen and silicone, the
human body was obsolete.
What’s funny is, the other thing Eve’s dad used to say was: “If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you
do it, too?”
Experts advised this was the only point in history when we could make mass emigration happen. We’d
needed the space program to give us proof of the next life. We needed the mass media to take this proof
around the world. We needed our weapons of mass destruction to ensure full compliance.
If there were any future generations, they wouldn’t know what we knew. They wouldn’t have the tools
we had to make this happen. They’d just live their horrible, miserable physical lives, eating rat turds,
ignorant that we could all live in pleasure on Venus.
Of course, a lot of people pushed to just nuclear-blast the noncompliant, but vaporizing every little tribal
island in the South Pacific, that left our missile silos empty. The radiation didn’t migrate the way you
would hope. A nuclear winter settled over Australia, only for a couple months. Rain fell, and there was a
huge fish die-off, but the weather and the tides had a shitty way of cleaning up our poisoned mess. All this
emigration potential wasted, since Australia was 100 percent compliant in the first six months.
All of our nerve gas and deadly viruses, all our nuclear and conventional bombs, they were all a
disappointment. We weren’t even close to erasing humanity. People hunkered in caves. People roamed
on camels over vast, empty deserts. Any of these stupid, backward people could fuck. A sperm meets
an egg, and your soul gets sucked back to live another tedious lifetime, eating, sleeping, getting
sunburned. On Earth: Planet Hurt. Planet Conflict. Planet Pain.
For the Emigration Assistance Squads, with their clean white machine guns, the Top-A priority targets
were noncompliant females between the ages of fourteen and thirty-five. All other females were Top-B
priority targets for assistance. All noncompliant males were Top-C priority. If bullets were running out, a
white-suited team might leave a whole village of men and old women alive to grow old and emigrate
naturally.
Tracee always worried about being a Top-A priority target, about getting machine-gunned on her way
to the gym. But most of the squads were in the countryside or the mountains, places where backward
baby-having people might hide.
The stupidest stupid people could completely sidetrack your spiritual evolution. It just wasn’t fair.
Everybody else, millions of souls, they were already at the party. On the Venus video, you could catch
the faces of famous people who’d suffered enough on Earth and didn’t have to come back for another
life. You’d see Grace Kelly and Jim Morrison. Jackie Kennedy and John Lennon. Kurt Cobain. Those
were ones Eve could recognize. They were all at the party, looking young and happy, forever.
Among the dead celebrities roamed animals extinct on Earth: passenger pigeons, duck-billed platypuses,
giant dodos.
On the television news, big-name celebrities were applauded the moment they emigrated. If these
people, movie stars and rock bands, could emigrate for the greater good of all humanity, these people
with money and talent and fame, with everything to keep them here, if they could emigrate, everyone
could.
In the last issue ofPeople magazine, the feature story was the “Celebrity Cruise to Nowhere.”
Thousands of the best-dressed, most beautiful people, fashion designers and supermodels, software
moguls and professional athletes, they boarded theQueen Mary II and sailed off, drinking and dancing,
racing north across the Atlantic Ocean, looking, full speed ahead, for an iceberg to ram.
Chartered jetliners slammed into mountaintops.
Tour buses careened off towering ocean cliffs.
Here in the United States, most people went to Wal-Mart or Rite Aid and bought the Going Away Kits.
The first generation of kits were barbiturates packaged inside a head-sized plastic bag with a drawstring
for around your neck. The next generation of kits were a cherry-flavored chewable cyanide pill. So many
people were emigrating right there in the store aisle—emigrating without paying for their kits—that
Wal-Mart put the kits behind the customer-service desk with the cigarettes and made you pay first
before they’d hand one over. Every couple minutes, an announcment over the public-address speakers
asked customers to be courteous and not to emigrate while on store property . . . Thank you.
Early on, some people pushed what they called the French Method. Their idea was just to sterilize
everyone. First by surgery, but this took too long. Then by exposing people’s genitals to focused
radiation. Still, by that time all the doctors had emigrated. Doctors were among the first to jump ship.
Doctors, true, yes, death was their enemy, but without it they were lost. Brokenhearted. Without
doctors, it was janitors shooting folks with radiation. People got burns. The power grid failed. The End.
By then, all the beautiful, cool people had emigrated with cyanide in champagne at glamorous “Bon
Voyage Parties.” They’d held hands and jumped from skyscraper penthouse parties. People already a
little world-weary, all the movie stars and super-athletes and rock bands. The supermodels and software
billionaires, they were gone after that first week.
Every day, Eve’s dad would come home saying who was gone from his office. Who in the neighborhood
had emigrated. It was easy to tell. Their front lawn would get too tall. Their mail and newspapers would
pile up on the doorstep. Their curtains were never open, their lights never came on, and you’d walk past
and catch a whiff of something sweet, some kind of fruit or meat rotting inside the house. The air buzzed
with black flies.
The house next door, the Frinks’ house, was like that. So was the house across the street.
For the first few weeks, it was fun: Larry going downtown to pound his electric guitar alone on the stage
of the Civic Theater auditorium. Eve getting to use the entire shopping mall as her own private closet.
School was out, and it would never, ever start back up.
But their dad, you could tell he was already over Tracee. Their dad was never good at the part after the
romantic start. Normal times, this was when he’d start to cheat. He’d find some new squeeze at his
office. Instead, he was watching the Venus footage on television, paying close attention, his nose almost
touching the parts where you could make out people, groups of those beautiful supermodel people, piled
together naked or linked in a long daisy chain. Licking red wine off each other. Humping without
reproduction or disease or God’s damnation.
Tracee, she was making a list of celebrities she wanted to be best friends with once the family arrived.
At the top of her list was Mother Teresa.
By now even harried moms were rounding up their kids, shrieking for everybody to hurry up and drink
their poisoned milk and get their asses the hell to the next step of spiritual evolution. Now even life and
death would be phases to rush through, the way teachers hurried kids from grade to grade to
graduation—no matter how much they did or didn’t learn. A big rat race to enlightenment.
In the car now, her voice getting deep and rough from breathing the smoke, Tracee reads, “As the cells
of your heart valves begin to die, the two halves, calledventricles, get sloppy, pumping less and less
blood through your body . . .”
She coughs and reads, “Without blood, your brain stops functioning. Within minutes you’ll emigrate.”
And Tracee shuts the pamphlet. The End.
Eve’s dad says, “Good-bye, planet Earth.”
And the Boston terrier, Risky, barfs up cheese popcorn all over the back seat.
The smell of dog barf, and the sound of Risky gobbling it up, are even worse than the carbon monoxide.
Larry looks at his sister, the black makeup smeared around his eyes, his eyes blinking in slow motion, he
says, “Eve, take your dog outside to puke.”
In case the family’s gone when she gets back, her dad says there’s a Going Away Kit on the counter in
the kitchen. He tells Eve not to hang around too long. They’ll be waiting for her at the big party.
Eve’s future ex-stepmom says, “Don’t hold the door open and let out any smoke.” Tracee says, “I want
to emigrate, not just be brain-damaged.”
“Too late,” Eve says, and tugs the dog outside to the backyard. There, the sun is still shining. Birds build
nests, too dumb to know this planet is out of fashion. Bees crawl around inside the open roses, not
knowing their whole reality is obsolete.
In the kitchen, on the counter next to the sink, is a Going Away Kit, the plastic blister card of cyanide
pills. It was a new flavor, lemon. A family pack. Printed on the cardboard backing is a little cartoon. It
shows an empty stomach. A clock face counts off three minutes. And then your cartoon soul would
wake up in a world of pleasure and comfort. The next planet. Evolved.
Eve punches one out, a bright-yellow pill printed with a smiling happy-face in red. It didn’t matter if
they’d used that toxic kind of red dye. Eve punches out all the pills. All eight, she takes into the bathroom
and flushes down the toilet.
The car’s still running inside the garage. Through a window, standing on a lawn chair, Eve can see the
heads slumped inside. Her dad. Her future ex-stepmom. Her brother.
In the backyard, Risky is nosing at the crack under the garage door, sniffing the fumes from inside. Eve
tells him, No. She calls him back away from the house, back into the sunshine. There, with the
neighborhood quiet except for the birds, the buzz of the bees, the backyard already looks messy and
needs mowing. With no roar of lawn mowers and airplanes and motorcycles, the birds singing sound as
loud as traffic used to.
After she lays down in the grass, Eve pulls up the bottom of her shirt and lets the sun warm her stomach.
She closes her eyes and rubs the fingertips of one hand in slow circles around her bellybutton.
Risky barks, once, twice.
And a voice says, “Hey.”
A face sticks over the fence from the backyard next door. Blond hair and pink pimples, a kid named
Adam from school. From before all the schools shut down. Adam’s fingers grip the top edge of the
wood fence, and he pulls himself up until both elbows rest along the top. His chin hooked on his two
hands, Adam says, “Did you hear about your brother’s girlfriend?”
Eve shuts her eyes and says, “This sounds weird, but I really miss death . . .”
Adam kicks a leg sideways to hook his foot over the fence. He says, “Your folks emigrate yet?”
In the garage, the car’s engine coughs and misses a beat on one cylinder. A ventricle getting sloppy.
Inside the window glass, the garage air is shifting gray clouds of smoke. The engine misses again and
goes quiet. Nothing inside moves. Eve’s family, now they’re just their own left-behind luggage.
And, spread out in the sunshine, feeling her skin turn tight and red, Eve says, “Poor Larry.” Still rubbing
circles around her bellybutton.
Risky goes to stand next to the fence, looking up, as Adam hauls one leg, then the other over the top,
then jumps down into the yard. Adam stoops to pet the dog. Scratching under the dog’s chin, Adam
says, “Did you tell them we’re pregnant?”
And Eve, she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t open her eyes.
Adam says, “If we get the whole human race started again, our folks will beso pissed . . . ”
The sun is almost straight overhead. What sounds like cars is just wind blowing through the empty
neighborhood.
Material possessions are obsolete. Money is useless. Status is pointless.
It would be summer for another three months, and there was a whole world of canned food to eat.
That’s if the Emigration Assistance Squad didn’t machine-gun her for noncompliance. Top-A priority
target that she is. The End.
Eve opens her eyes and looks at the white dot near the blue horizon. The Morning Star. Venus. “If I
have this baby,” Eve says, “I hope it’s going to be . . . Tracee.”
posted by deadspace on 9:42 AM |
Sunday, May 03, 2009
"I mean, maybe not all friendships have to be saved. You know, maybe we're just meant to spend a certain part of our lives with certain people and then move on. Isn't that what this year is supposed to be about? Moving on?”- dawsons creek
posted by deadspace on 8:38 AM |
Thursday, April 30, 2009
I miss californication. They ended the season killing off Lew Ashby. God. Will be passing the time listening to Shaw Blades's rendition of California Dreamin' till the next season.posted by deadspace on 12:17 PM |
The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. (Wilde)
posted by deadspace on 11:59 AM |
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Its money and my fucking fear.posted by deadspace on 1:41 AM |
Friday, April 24, 2009
I love random photos of people, especially when said people are not aware of the existence of some camera fixated on them. Facial expressions speak a thousand words, even if people try their darnest to hide their feelings and emotions. We live in a world where everyone hides behind a facade they present to the world. We fake it so much to a point sometimes we convince ourselves thats really who we are.To different people we display different aspects of our personality. The only true inklings of emotional recognition we can count on are photos taken discreetly. Photos depict a moment in time. The smiling faces, the holding of hands, the silly poses.
I was coming home from the city, and the bus was really crowded. In front of me, next to the window, sat this forlorn middle-aged lady. She was looking at some photographs, the fujifilm kind of photos which required developing. They are either old photos or she still believes in the negatives camera. As I watch her sift through the photos, some thoughts ran through my mind.
What was she thinking as she gazed at the photos? She breezed through the landscape photos. When she came to photos with people in the she took a careful look, and even touched their faces. I was moved, really moved. What were those photos to her? Who were those people?
This is beautiful. I think I shall understand better when some years have come between myself and the love I had for the people in my photos. I feel it sometimes, when I chance upon pictures of my grandparents who have passed on, or people I haven't seen in half my life.
You remember friends, lovers, family, laughter, tears, bad times, good times, scents, tastes, colors, textures, emotions... you remember light, you remember darkness... you remember all of it. You live it once more, you travel back to that place and time again, and you feel.. because a real photograph is not a picture, it is a memory, and memories are forever... From the moment of birth, everyone is always taking pictures. They relate stories. Pictures hold time still. Next time you look at a picture, look at the frozen moment back in time. Look back through the eyes of the photographer, the artist.
There have been awkward moments in my life where I shy away from the camera. Somehow at those times there always seemed to be a camera around. Then again, there are always the good laughs once we revisit the photos.
It is hard to avoud moments like that.
posted by deadspace on 9:24 AM |
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
I attended a Soundfoundry party a couple of nights ago. It was a social gathering planned by the 5th exco for the members under an event that was included in the annual budget. The food tasted good, perhaps because none of us had to pay for any of it.There were quite a lot of members I met for the first time. Despite not everyone turning up, there were about 40 of us. I have to admit I haven't been all too active. Then again so has Soundfoundry, starry night aside. The exco did great this time round.
Food aside, there was lots of cards, and lots of booze. Cigarettes were getting passed around. So was the alcohol. This is quite the first time I meet people more enthusiastic at handing out drinks than myself.
We played rock band. Now for the curious reader wondering how a bunch of musicians fared at guitar hero, or rock bank in this case, he would be disappointed to know that we weren't that fantastic. Truth is, its nothing like the real deal. The closest rock band would ever be to the real thing is the vocals. Haha.. Guitars have strings, not buttons. One might argue that the drum set mimics playing drums quite a bit, but tryign to follow flashing colors on the screen turns drumming into a discipline not unlike math - A formulae to adhere to.
After a dozen tries, some group finally cleared expert on everything. Linkin Park - what i've done. Moving on to Blink 182's damnit, someone said in frustration 'Commmon we can do this. It's Blink 182. Damnit'
We had interesting conversations. Every musician faces the dilemma of deciding between playing for the crowd and playing for oneself. Musicians as entertainers can never run away from mainstream tunes. Some people take life's lemons and make lemonade, alternating between the two. Some people forever remain in a bar's background, playing to people who are to drunk to listen or to applause. Some people play music purely for their own, and chances are they stay in obscurity.
We have seen the lives of people who chose to follow their heart. Go to Beerklee. Live amongst people who eat and breathe music. Drown in the talent pool. Graduate, if one might be so inclined, and hopefulllllly be able to make it big, or forever remain in the background of some second rate bar. My instructor has seen those days. He gave up a comfortable engineering job to study music. Got qualified. Went to Australia to live and work. Got married. Played live gigs with his band every now and then. Came back to Singapore. Played some bar gigs. Earned peanuts. Lugged his guitar home on the public transport every night. The long erratic hours got too much. Started teaching music at La selle and SMU. Still teaching. And still earning peanuts. However, he still maintained that he never regretted his decision to change careers. If anything, he had his passion to fall back on.
He is quite an inspiration.
I love music, and I love playing. I miss playing in fact. To people who would appreciate your music and give you the time of day.
As somebody succinctly put it 'as a musician in Soundfoundry, you know that there's nothing else you can join'.
I'm gonna go play myself something now.
posted by deadspace on 4:37 PM |
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
'To be out of the smoke and air, to be out of the heat, it must have felt like flying''Lonely 10 second journeys, a very public way of dying'
posted by deadspace on 11:37 AM |
Saturday, March 28, 2009
May your testicles shrink up and fall off and get taken by a squirrel and buried and later discovered by aliens in the year 6000 who clone your shrunken testicles and populate a simulated planet with your cloned testicles who, after millions of years, evolve into sentient beings whose poetic language uses the word “Casey” as their most offensive insult.
- Toperchris
posted by deadspace on 2:36 AM |
Women hate women. You get any two girlfriends in this room, been girlfriends for twenty five years, you put a man in between them … “fuck that bitch,” “fuck that bitch.” Guys are not like that. Guys actually think that there are other fish in the sea, and if a guy introduces his boy to his new girlfriend, and when they walk away, his boy goes, “Oh man, she’s nice, I gotta get me a girl like that.” If a woman introduces her new man to her girlfriend, and they walk away, her girlfriend goes, “I gotta get him, and I will slit that bitch’s throat to do it.” Every girl in here got a girlfriend they don’t trust around their man.
- Chris Rock
I think so too.
posted by deadspace on 2:35 AM |
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Anonymous has to be the greatest self promoter of all time. It has no figurehead, no leader, no organization and yet it has the power to attack the enemies of freedom across the world.Anonymous is everywhere.
Anonymous is nowhere.
Fill up your End-term course feedback people.
posted by deadspace on 10:46 PM |
Friday, March 20, 2009
'one has the right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends'- Oscar Wilde
NIN is coming over.
Slap me.
posted by deadspace on 1:17 PM |
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The problem with sex is the same as with any addiction. You're always recovering. You're always backsliding. Acting out. Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against. All these people who say they want a life free from sexual compulsion, i mean forget it. I mean, what could ever be better than sex?For sure, even the worst blow job is better than, say, sniffing the best rose... Watching the greatest sunset. Hearing children laugh.
I think that i shall never see a poem as lovely as a hot-gushing, butt-cramping, gut hosing orgasm.
Painting a picture, composing an opera, thats just something you do until you find the next willing piece of ass.
The minute something better than sex come along, you call me. Have me paged.
- Choke By Chuck Palahnuik
Someone I kinda committed suicide. He borrowed a lighter once, it that counts for anything. I wonder what made him. Deciding if life is worth living; That is the ultimate question isn't it?
posted by deadspace on 9:12 AM |
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Another day down the drain.
I don't know about this.
posted by deadspace on 10:24 AM |
Monday, March 16, 2009
"Great paintings shouldn’t be in museums. Have you ever been in a museum? Museums are cemetaries. Paintings should be on the walls of restaurants, in dime stores, in gas stations, in men’s rooms. Great paintings should be where people hang out. The only thing where it’s happening is on radio and records, that’s where people hang out. You can’t see great paintings. You pay half a million and hang one in your house and one guest sees it. That’s not art. That’s a shame, a crime. Music is the only thing that’s in tune with what’s happening. It’s not in book form, it’s not on the stage. All this art they’ve been talking about is nonexistent. It just remains on the shelf. It doesn’t make anyone happier. Just think how many people would really feel great if they could see a Picasso in their daily diner. It’s not the bomb that has to go, man, it’s the museums."- Bob Dylan
posted by deadspace on 7:09 AM |
Monday, March 09, 2009
due to the current economic climate, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched offposted by deadspace on 10:43 AM |
Sunday, March 01, 2009
I think you are the perfect example of understated cool. I wish I knew you.
posted by deadspace on 7:53 AM |
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Today, I met a guy at a bar and we went back to my room. We start having sex and about 30 seconds in he stops and says it’s not right - he likes me too much for a one night stand. He gives me his number, a kiss on the cheek and leaves. Turns out he already came. I call his phone - wrong number. FML.-
posted by deadspace on 10:06 AM |
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as uselesss, to resist.- Stewart Alsop
I experienced a death lately. It wasn't anyone close to me, yet I was profoundly affected. I can't get use to reality of death; not just yet at least. But I'm learning. Cancer is actually quite serious. (No shit.) What was intriguing are the symptoms of death. Here's an article. It really helps to allude you to the fact that death is unevitable and that even though its a new experience for the dying person (and his loved ones), it does not have to be a scary experience. It can be a very powerful moment where minds are spoken without reservations. Finally theres one thing I should remember; know, not fear, know that someday I am going to die.
Dying is unique to each person.
The days and hours leading to the moment of death can be rich with meaning and expressions of love.
Knowing the normal physical processes can make this time more peaceful. When a person is close to death, a natural series of changes occurs. These changes usually are not medical emergencies and the goal at this point is to keep the dying person as comfortable as possible.
Common Physical Changes
Sleeping
A person nearing death may stop talking or responding and begin sleeping more and more as his body changes how it uses energy. Always assume that he can hear, even if he seems unconscious and no longer communicates. Keep talking to him and touch him if touching provides comfort.
Loss of Interest in Food and Fluids
As the body begins to shut down and loses its ability to process food and fluid, the person may have little interest in eating or drinking. Urine production will decline and may be the color of tea. The question of whether to begin providing fluids often arises. If food or fluids are given artificially at this point, the person may feel discomfort. However, she may want small amounts of ice chips or a Popsicle. Proper care of the mouth is particularly important at this time.
Coolness
The patient's nose, ears, hands, arms, feet and legs may feel increasingly cool to the touch. This is because blood circulation is decreasing. Keep him warm with extra covering, but don't use an electric blanket. He may not be able to sense or tell you if the blanket overheats.
Changes in Skin Color
The skin, especially on the hands and feet, may look blue and blotchy. This is called mottling and is caused by slow blood circulation. The underside of his body may become darker. You may notice a bluish gray color around the mouth or paleness in the face.
Rattling Sounds in the Lungs and Throat
Rattling sounds, which can be quite loud, can occur when a person is taking fewer fluids and loses the ability to cough up secretions. This rattling does not signal additional pain or discomfort. Suctioning generally is not recommended, since this increases secretions and discomfort. You can turn your loved one's head or body gently to the side. Keep the mouth moist and clean.
Bladder and Bowel Changes
The ill person may lose the ability to control urine and stool as the muscles in that area begin to relax. Check with your doctor about whether a catheter is needed. Disposable bed pads or adult Depends also may help.
Disorientation and Restlessness
A person nearing death may seem confused about the time or place. She may not recognize familiar faces. She may show restlessness, such as pulling at bedding or clothing. These behaviors occur as a result of less oxygen to the brain, chemical changes in the body and medications. If disorientation occurs, identify yourself by name and speak softly but clearly. Explain the procedures your are doing, such as "We're going to turn you now" or "I'm going to help you take your medicine now." Handholding, quiet music, or reading out loud may be calming.
Surge of Energy
Occasionally, when someone is close to death, he has a temporary increase in energy and alertness. He may become talkative after a period of disorientation or sleepiness. He may ask for a favorite food after having refused meals and he may ask for visitors after a period of withdrawal. Take advantage of this time; it can be one of special closeness and a chance to express your love and support.
Breathing Pattern Changes
Breathing patterns often change as the body continues to shut down. You may notice period of rapid, shallow breathing. Or you may see shallow breathing with a space of five to 60 seconds between breaths. This is called Cheyne-Stokes breathing.
Common Emotional Changes
and Needs
Withdrawal
Your loved one may focus less and less energy on the world around her. She may appear to lose interest in surroundings, favorite pastimes and visitors. Her energy is limited and she may want only to be with one or two people. Respect this period of withdrawal. Though it can be a sad time for family and friends, this can be a peaceful time for your loved one. Your presence is the most important gift you can offer during this period.
Vision-like Experiences
Your loved one may speak to someone you cannot see or tell you he sees persons or places not visible to you. These experiences are real to him and are common in the transition from life to death. Do not argue or try to explain away the experience. Most often, these visions are comforting.
The Need for Permission to Let Go
Difficult as it is, giving permission to let go can be an important final gift. A dying person may try to hold on, even in the face of prolonged discomfort, to be sure her loved ones will be all right. Your permission can include saying good-bye, saying it's all right to let go and reassuring your loved one you will be all right. You don't need to hide your tears; they are a natural expression of your love.
The Need to Say Good-bye
You might wish to call friends and family members who want to share their thoughts and expressions of love with your dying loved one. Good-byes can be as simple as "I love you and I'll miss you." Good-byes can include sharing some beloved memories and saying "Thank you," or making amends with "I'm sorry for whatever difficulties..." Share these important messages, even if the dying person doesn't seem to respond. Remember, hearing is among the last senses to fade.
The Need of Friends to Feel Useful
Many times, friends may offer to help. These are sincere offers, so if you need some practical help such as picking up a prescription, picking up a relative at the airport or delivering dry cleaning, let friends and family feel useful. They will be grateful to you for letting them help.
Choosing the Setting
Even during the dying process, a person continues to protect and nurture those he or she loves. For many sick persons, death is a very private act and they will wait for the few brief minutes they can be alone to slip away. Others will wait until they are alone with one or two special persons to let go. Still others will leave amid a circle of loving faces around their bedsides. However death occurs, trust that it was probably they way your loved one chose it to be.
When Death Occurs
Though you have been present during the dying process, the actual moment of death will be powerful. Each person will experience it differently. The signs that death has occurred are
* No breathing for a prolonged period of time
* No heartbeat
* Eyes fixed and slightly open, with enlarged pupils
* Jaw relaxed, with the mouth slightly open.
Whether death occurs at home, a hospital or a nursing home, family and friends may want to sit with the body for a time. There is no need to rush things, and sitting with the body, praying or reminiscing, may be comforting.
If death occurs in a facility, the nurses will help with procedures. If it occurs at home under hospice care, the hospice nurse should be called to come and assist. If death occurs at home without hospice, the physician should be notified. In some counties, the police may come to the home. It is important that they know the death was expected.
Although this is one of life's most painful experiences, it also can be a rich time of expressions of love and gratitude.
posted by deadspace on 7:26 AM |
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.- F. Scott Fitzgerald
We all like to see heros fail don't we. The one thing people love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. Its an inherent trait. Nothing new about that. Eventually we'll all come to hate one another. Lets all go stoic.
posted by deadspace on 9:30 PM |
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Chuck Norris can edit a pdf.posted by deadspace on 1:55 AM |
Monday, January 26, 2009
The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck.- I have no idea from whom
posted by deadspace on 8:58 PM |
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor DostoevskyThe Crack-Up, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Deliverance, James Dickey
American Pastoral, Philip Roth
The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
Dispatches, Michael Herr
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
Plainsong, Kent Haruf
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
posted by deadspace on 10:51 AM |
Friday, January 23, 2009
fuck you desire.posted by deadspace on 9:04 AM |
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I went to hell and back last night. Things might look up, especially after you hit bottom. I do hope I have hit bottom. I do hope I prevented the fever.The worse thing about being sick right now is not being able to taste my food. What kind of horrid punishment is that? I don't mind running a temperature for days on end. Just don't take away my sense of taste. Eating is reduced to mere physical munching and subtle tasting, if any at all. I should just get a drip to be spared the torture.
Once again I'm reminded that I'm not invincible.
And... I really hate being fussed over.
Really.
posted by deadspace on 6:54 AM |
Monday, January 05, 2009
New year resolution: Ironic as it may sound, it is to keep healthy while still enjoying myself with alcohol and fags.Some of you readers might understand.
Happy new year.
posted by deadspace on 2:36 AM |
Monday, December 22, 2008
posted by deadspace on 11:11 AM |
Sunday, December 14, 2008
I have been drinking with the wrong crowd. When was the last time I got hopelessly drunk? I can't remember. Not cool. Its coupled by the fact its never good to get drunk around sober people. I wanna jack off and smoke underwater. Just to see where it would take me.And then we could all go pearl diving after.
posted by deadspace on 11:47 AM |
Coming back home on the NEL train after Zoukout, there was a really animated caucasian in the same carriage. Donning his wig, a tee with 'ANG MO' emblazoned distinctly across the chest and clutching a can of beer, it was obvious he was part of the zoukout crowd trotting home after dawn. Unlike the rest of the partygoers however, he still wasn't done with the partying. Together with his companions they proceeded to entertain the entire carriage, grooving along to some tunes on his handphone to the amusement of everyone else. I couldn't help but alternate my attention between them and this middle aged couple who gaped in disbelief. There were 3 other caucasians who could hardly contain their chuckling.
At one point, ANG MO beckoned his famale companion to the pole for a pole dance. I mentally begged her not to. Thank heavens she had the good sense to refrain. I think she was that close to obliging. When the wheedling failed ANG MO took out a cigarette and placed it in his mouth. Had he lighted it, things would have been interesting.
The highlight of it came when ANG MO blurted 'Next station's called CAMELTOE'
It was so dire. From where this guy came from, train stations are probably named after a slew of profundities I gathered. I was slightly amused of course.
The light was shed when at the next next station, the train announcer said 'Clarke Quay, ke la ma tou'. This was followed by 'CAMELTOE!' and fits of laughter by ANG MO and company.
I almost flipped.
Listenables: Mammal - Smash the pinata
(it has a real badass bass line)
posted by deadspace on 8:09 AM |
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A part of success is actually finding someone who's actually happy for you. That is also the hardest part it seems.posted by deadspace on 7:21 AM |
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Ecaps ni tuo er'uoy nehwreraen mees ton od
srats eht taht
uoy eveileb t'nod llits I
posted by deadspace on 10:48 AM |
Sunday, December 07, 2008
"Avoid any girl with more tattoos than you. She’ll never respect you. "
posted by deadspace on 7:52 AM |
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Fuck.posted by deadspace on 7:29 AM |
Saturday, November 29, 2008
On Taiwanese temples and earthquakes:
posted by deadspace on 11:58 PM |
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A tree nourished by absinthe and alcohol produces the fruits of prostitution, madness, and the death of the race.- Hideous Asbinthe, the devil in a bottle
posted by deadspace on 8:13 AM |
Thursday, November 20, 2008
I've never been so godless. Not that its a cause for concern. I've never believed in god anyway, but thats not saying I think God doesn't exist. I saw my parents pray today and it really bothered me.I have always functioned well without a god, but I suspect it would hunt me down one day. You think you're unique and above everyone else, but in the end you're just about as unique as everyone else, and better than no one. You become a statistic.
If anything is true, it highly probable we will turn into our parents - everything you hope you won't be, you become. My parents couldn't always have been that pious. Somewhere along the way something happened. What was it that made them toss rationality out the window? The loss of their parents perhaps? Our parents are our models for god. When they're gone, what next? Faced with nothing else, there would only be one path. If thats the case I'm on the way.
They say that all atheists are intellectuals. I say all atheists are sad intellectuals. They have all the questions but no answers. How does one deal with all that absurdity. Disproving the existence of a supreme being gives one nothing but a whole new void. Ignorance is bliss, once again.
I've gone through this so many times. This time something's gotta give.
Right now, nothing makes any sense.
If to believe is what it takes, I submit to my fate.
Just hit me.
posted by deadspace on 12:33 PM |
Sunday, November 16, 2008
posted by deadspace on 1:07 PM |
