me

about a week ago, or so, i came across an essay that intrigued me: how a tv sitcom triggered the downfall of western civilization.

i’ve said for a while now that it was, in fact, reality television that brought down civilization, but this guy may have it right when he points to show friends as the real “trigger.”

in 1994, when friends first aired, i was a sophomore in high school (man, i’m old…). though in those days the only shows i watched religiously were the star trek reboots the next generation and deep space nine, i am embarrassed to say i have vivid memories of driving around in my metallic-blue oldsmobile delta 88 listening to the friends theme song. i’ll admit to thinking at the time that it was a catchy song, with the caveat that my car had no tape deck, no fm radio. looking back now, i can’t for the life of me understand why the song was so popular that it played frequently on kansas am radio.

from the essay:

The show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of terror as the No. 1 show in the U.S., the same year that Paris Hilton started her own “lifestyle brand” and released and autobiography. And Joey Tribbiani got a spin-off TV show. The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value. Just as Green Day; their album American Idiot was released in 2004, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely. The rejection of Ross marked the moment when much of America groaned, mid-sentence, at the voice of reason.

the author makes a reasonable point. though friends did have a certain appeal, while watching reruns of the show in my young-adult years, i always found it odd that this group of people could possibly be friends. and it seemed that in addition to having some strange shared or overlapping history, they all (with the exception of ross) had a shared loathing or general apathy for anything that actually mattered, current events, etc. and they’d throw verbal tomatoes at ross if he attempted to enlighten them.

that ross and rachel ended up together was always the happy ending the romantic in me wanted for ross, though critically it’s hard to understand what they had in common besides that shared history. friends was always a show that entertained me, but took it for what (i thought) it was, a funny sitcom cast with attractive people. but my eyes have been opened and i can see how it might have been friends, as the lead-up to reality television, that has led to the fall of civilization.

from his conclusion, the author pivots to some simple actions we as individuals can take to “retain our sanity in a dumb, dumb world”:

No. 1: read a fucking book.

No. 2: learn something.

No. 3: stop buying so much shit.

And finally: protect the nerds.

check out the essay, it’s an easy and entertaining read.

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in addition to trying to post… something here everyday, i’m working on a number of other efforts to better myself.

i know i’ve said things like this here before and i have no expectation that these renewed efforts will be any more fruitful than previous attempts. still, at least for now, i feel like this time it could be different.

the difference is that this time there’s no long-term plan or grand goal at the end. rather than saying, “i’m going to lose weight” or, “exercise more” or the like, i’m just taking it one day at a time. and if a day goes off the rails, i’m not getting worked up about it; tomorrow’s another day and we’ll try again.

with no lofty goals, i’m just trying to be conscious of a few things throughout my days.

for starters, i’m trying to eat better. though i’m still not keen on cooking and am not preparing homemade lunches, i’m focusing on smaller portions. this not only saves me a bit of money, but keeps me from eating too much in the middle of the day. lunches are where i’m also trying to get my starch as plate lunches are difficult to get without rice, or the like. in the evenings and weekends, i’m focusing on lean protein, fruits, and vegetables. its at home where most of my junk-food eating seems to take place… mostly because i don’t like cooking.

in addition to trying to eat less and better, i’m also trying to spend my time in more productive ways. though this effort has been met with mixed results so far, it’s still just one day at a time.

conscious of my inclination to stay up late for no particular reason, i’ve been setting my bedtime at 10pm. for the last week, or so, the plan as been as follows: i come home after work, or whatever, have a small snack (cheese, fruit, or a pice of bread), then watch an hour or two of television while i prepare and eat dinner. following dinner, i’ve really been trying to turn off the boob-tube to read, write, or do other work. this has been trickier for me, as i have a difficult time starting. once i sit down to do… whatever, i usually stick to it. but it’s always the starting that i struggle with.

finally, partly as an effort to have more to write about and partly just to spend time other than playing games or watching television, i’ve been trying to read more. mostly news stories and related studies. for a quite a while, i’ve been adding articles and such to the “reading list” in my safari, though never actually going back to read them. now, to curb that bad habit, i’m keeping the articles open in tabs; i may not get to them all right away, but they’re less likely to be set aside indefinitely and then forgotten. this has also been met with mix results. there are articles that have been open in tabs for more than a few days, though mostly because i intend to write something about them and so they remain as easily accessible references.

all in all, after about a week i’m doing fairly well. my therapist says it takes something like 16 weeks to form a habit. and while i’m in the very early stages with all this, and really trying not to look down the road too far, it is my hope that at least some of these efforts will become habits.

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with the posts of my experiences in philladelphia behind me, i’m going to try to get back on track with (somewhat?) regular posts here. and so to being i’m looking to start a new trend for my site: music mondays.

a quick google search suggests its already a thing, so i’m not breaking new ground here, but its nonetheless a good idea and as music is fairly high on my list of interests, it seems appropriate for my site.

so for my first “music monday” post, i want to point out a couple of songs from an artist that’s been around for a few years, at least, but whom i only recent became aware of. lord huron has an interesting sound that falls squarely in the indie-folk genre. i’ve been listing non-stop to two albums for a little over a week. strange trails was released in april 2015 and is, i think an improvement on lonesome dreams, their freshman album, released toward the end of 2012.

there are so many good songs to share, but here’s a couple i currently particularly fond of:

both come from the strange trails album. enjoy.

 

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thursday. the last day of the convention and my last full day in the city of brotherly love.

frustration from two days prior continued to linger and physical and mental fatigue was beginning to set in, but i was up, again, in time to be at breakfast at 7am. that morning’s breakfast was going to be a special one; it had been arranged to have senator bernie sanders himself come and speak to the delegations staying at the hilton valley forge hotel.

thoroughly excited, i made sure i was downstairs in the conference room in plenty of time and to make sure i had my choice of seats.

in addition, and prior to, bernie’s speech, we welcomed former maryland governor martin o’malley. his speech was good, but honestly, i was so excited to see the senator up close and personal, i didn’t pay much attention. instead, i kept glancing back at the entrance to the room, waiting for the senator’s arrival.

unfortunately, because some bernie supporters were so unhappy with his loss and previous endorsement of hillary clinton, the senator was being harassed. there had been protests at his hotel (i didn’t even know where he was staying). so bernie was a little on guard and his secret service detail was definitely on guard. so, instead of a grand entrance from the back of the room, he was quietly rushed in through the kitchen entrance at the side of the room.

his appearance was sudden and though there was certainly applause and a rush to welcome him and maybe shake his hand, security moved him promptly to the stage with little fanfare and he began his address to us.

i tried to get some pictures of a couple of our young and bright bernie delegates presenting him with lei and gifts from hawaii. unfortunately, in the hustle and crowd, it proved difficult. i did, however get this great picture of a crying asami after presenting the senator with a lei:

his speech was good, but not a deviation from anything i’d heard from him over the last couple days. it was just thrilling to have him there, knowing what his campaign meant to so many people, including myself.

then, when he concluded his was whisked away back through the kitchen as quickly as he had entered.

though there were more events at the convention center, not to mention clinton’s acceptance speech that evening. i, however, decided bernie’s visit to our hotel would be a fitting end to my official convention experience. i wasn’t really keen on hearing hillary speak, nor bear witness to the celebration (and smugness from some) of clinton’s supporters. instead, i gave away my credentials to one of the party faithful form hawaii who had come to philly to staff the delegation; she was a clinton supporter and had no doubt she’d enjoy being there to see hillary accept the nomination much more than i would have.

so, a gray and rainy day spent packing, relaxing, editing photos, and writing marked the end of my convention delegate experience. in some ways, it had been the longest few days of my life. in others, it was over as hurriedly as it had begun. i was sorry to see it come it an end without any real climax, but so it goes.

early the next morning, i boarded a shuttle to the airport happy to begin my vacation spending quality time with friends and family in the midwest.

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the previous day had been a rough one and though we had to be up early again for breakfast, wednesday morning began with a slow start.

from my perspective, the most important parts of the convention had already taken place and, admittedly, my enthusiasm was beginning to wane. there wasn’t much, as best as we could tell, a whole lot going on at the arena of note prior to the primetime speakers, so a lot of us spent much of the day doing progressive, non-convention-related stuff: attending trainings, forums, protests, etc.

for my part, myself and a friend decided to attend some forums in the city being put on by progressive democrats of america. if memory serves, which is always questionable, the forum was on progressive budget alternatives. it’s a topic both my friend and i have been interested in for some time and had, in previous years, attempted to publicize here in hawaii (to little effect). however, for reasons also escaping my recollection, we never made it to the forum despite having paid for it. i think we were distracted and preoccupied talking to fellow progressives and just lost track of time.

still, the day still had promise as there was scheduled a democratic socialists of america (DSA) event at the same location. i was pretty excited about it…. in the meantime, we grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby deli and had lots of good conversations with various progressive activists and democratic socialists. a great way to spend a morning!

shortly after signing in for the DSA event and finding a couple of seats, we received a text message from the bernie campaign about a candidate and campaign training that had just been added to the day’s schedule and was going to start within the hour. after a bit of deliberation, my friend and i agreed it made sense to try and hoof it across town to be at the training with our fellow bernie supporters and progressive activists. and so, with some disappointment, we left before the DSA event got started and made our way back to the vicinity of the convention center.

…only we got a bit turned around. or, as my friend would certainly point out, i got us turned around. and i didn’t realize my mistake right away, rather more like after 20 minutes in the opposite direction. so we did our best to hurry back in the right direction, trying to find our way to a bus or subway stop that would get us to our destination. we did eventually make it, but we were quite late (and very hot and dehydrated). and then the training itself turned out, at least for me, to be not very useful. so it goes.

after the training was over, we walked over to reading market for some coffee and food as we mapped out our plan for the rest of the afternoon. while there, we bumped into some other hawaii bernie delegates and ended up just hanging around the market until it was time for us to make our way to the wells fargo center for primetime.

we had been warned that because the president was going to be in attendance, security was going to be much tighter and after a certain time we might not be admitted at all. and as had become typical of the DNC, none of those rumors turned out to be true….

despite president obama’s arguable failures in any number of areas of domestic policy and his utter warmongering foreign policy, it’s hard not to listen to him speak and… like him. he’s a hell of an orator.

i found myself, at more than one point during his speech, thinking how much i liked him and was so disappointed “this guy” hadn’t turned up to run the country.

while obama’s speech was the most memorable, i have to say vice president biden and clinton’s VP nominee, tim kane, did pretty well too.

the president finished his speech to a standing ovation and cheers. and while there was still one more day of the convention remaining, i didn’t know at the time that wouldn’t be back the following day.

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