So I looked into it. It turns out that we will have someone wearing makeup to make their skin look dark in the play. Blackface is what Mr. Man calls it.
Today's song is "We Don't Need No Love Songs" By Fitz and the Tantrums on their album Songs for a Break Up, Vol.1 - Ep.
Since my music taste ranges from refined to being so bad it is considered a war crime in some parts of this world, I will start to describe the songs or album a little after I recommend them.
As the name suggests Songs for a Break Up is an album most appropriately played when going through a tough romantic time. The song "We Don't Need No Love Songs" manages to capture the utter despair and loneliness that comes with losing someone that means a lot to you in your life. "We Don't Need No Love Songs" is one of those odd songs you can listen to if your depressed, and yet still enjoy if you are feeling like the king of the world. one last thing I want to mention before I hit the hay and go to sleep: Great for reminiscing.
Moral of the story: Evan Ryan can review the shit out of any song, even one that seems completely one dimensional.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Short Story
This is a story about Mr. Man. Mr. Man has very strong morals.
One day Mr. Man was acting in a play called "Our Country's Good", about the first convict ship that sailed to Australia in 1788, and how they pulled together and put on a play for the colony. It was no surprise that Mr. Man got the lead role, he was a very good actor. There were some bumps along the winding road of rehearsing; lines got mixed up, he rubbed cast members the wrong way, cast members rubbed him the wrong way. However, overall things started to come together; lines got remembered, cast members united.
But, as with all good stories Mr. Man ran into a major bump in the road. A bump that threatened his belief that it was morally acceptable to act in this play. Now Mr. Man also knows that it would be morally unacceptable to abandon his fellow actors, however he also knows that it would be morally unacceptable to act in a play where someone is dressed in blackface. Yes... Blackface.
"But don't you want to want to see this particular person in blackface?" I asked Mr. Man in a joking manner.
"Nope" He replied.
"Why not?" I asked, hoping to get a more juicy response from him.
"Because, it is incredibly offensive." He said while wearing his well-isn't-it-obvious face.
Now I can't know what will happen next. However, that won't stop me from postulating what can possibly happen if there IS blackface in the play. The following is an self-centered dramatized account of what will happen and what I will do if operation blackface takes effect...
"Ok... Let's re-enforce the day..." Kevin Colman, our director, says after a day of Tuesday rehearsal. I can tell that something bothers him as he leans back in his chair and runs his hand through where his hair used to be.
There is a long silence. Apparently I am not the only one who feels that something is wrong with Kevin. Jill reluctantly starts the process, she hesitates when speaks, as if expecting Kevin to stop her in the middle of her re-enforcement. She finishes and points to Alex who then begins to re-enforce as well. Eventually this goes on until the job comes to me, and if this isn't said already I will say it myself.
"Um... I would like to re-enforce Kevin for doing one hell of a job with this play. Um... Has anyone seen Mr. Man?" The room is silent.
"Finish the re-enforcement." Kevin interjects, implying that he has something to say at the end.
I finish doing my thing, and listen as everyone else continues to awkwardly finish their own, knowing that some bad news is coming once re-enforcement is over.
"We are all amazing actors are we not?" says Kevin when re-enforcement is passed to him. "And Amazing actors have the ability to 'Transcend personal feelings in the theater'" he continued quoting the play. "Yet sometimes we have reactions that cause us to feel like what we are doing is not the right thing to do. Mr. Man has had this reaction with our recent decision to use makeup on the part of the aborigine. Now Mr. Man and I have talked for a good long while. We have come to the decision that maybe it is best if he does not stay for the play. " There is a visible deflation of confidence from the cast. " Don't worry. I have actors lined up willing to jump in and fill his role if he is not back by tomorrow. I do hope that he will come back, however that won't stop me from going and making the calls that I need to make if we are to continue without him."
Kevin continued his speech, however most of us knew what this meant. Mr. Man was gone. Out of the blue, it was as if he had committed acting suicide, leaving us on our own, abandoned and alone.
The play eventually goes up despite the major setback, and the sudden disappearance of Mr. Man in the community. The whole cast thinks that he will come to at least watch the play, however his morals disallow him to even watch something so offensive as blackface.
THE END
Song of the day: "I Turn My Camera On" By Spoon on their album Gimme Fiction
Moral of the story: Happy endings are for suckas
One day Mr. Man was acting in a play called "Our Country's Good", about the first convict ship that sailed to Australia in 1788, and how they pulled together and put on a play for the colony. It was no surprise that Mr. Man got the lead role, he was a very good actor. There were some bumps along the winding road of rehearsing; lines got mixed up, he rubbed cast members the wrong way, cast members rubbed him the wrong way. However, overall things started to come together; lines got remembered, cast members united.
But, as with all good stories Mr. Man ran into a major bump in the road. A bump that threatened his belief that it was morally acceptable to act in this play. Now Mr. Man also knows that it would be morally unacceptable to abandon his fellow actors, however he also knows that it would be morally unacceptable to act in a play where someone is dressed in blackface. Yes... Blackface.
"But don't you want to want to see this particular person in blackface?" I asked Mr. Man in a joking manner.
"Nope" He replied.
"Why not?" I asked, hoping to get a more juicy response from him.
"Because, it is incredibly offensive." He said while wearing his well-isn't-it-obvious face.
Now I can't know what will happen next. However, that won't stop me from postulating what can possibly happen if there IS blackface in the play. The following is an self-centered dramatized account of what will happen and what I will do if operation blackface takes effect...
"Ok... Let's re-enforce the day..." Kevin Colman, our director, says after a day of Tuesday rehearsal. I can tell that something bothers him as he leans back in his chair and runs his hand through where his hair used to be.
There is a long silence. Apparently I am not the only one who feels that something is wrong with Kevin. Jill reluctantly starts the process, she hesitates when speaks, as if expecting Kevin to stop her in the middle of her re-enforcement. She finishes and points to Alex who then begins to re-enforce as well. Eventually this goes on until the job comes to me, and if this isn't said already I will say it myself.
"Um... I would like to re-enforce Kevin for doing one hell of a job with this play. Um... Has anyone seen Mr. Man?" The room is silent.
"Finish the re-enforcement." Kevin interjects, implying that he has something to say at the end.
I finish doing my thing, and listen as everyone else continues to awkwardly finish their own, knowing that some bad news is coming once re-enforcement is over.
"We are all amazing actors are we not?" says Kevin when re-enforcement is passed to him. "And Amazing actors have the ability to 'Transcend personal feelings in the theater'" he continued quoting the play. "Yet sometimes we have reactions that cause us to feel like what we are doing is not the right thing to do. Mr. Man has had this reaction with our recent decision to use makeup on the part of the aborigine. Now Mr. Man and I have talked for a good long while. We have come to the decision that maybe it is best if he does not stay for the play. " There is a visible deflation of confidence from the cast. " Don't worry. I have actors lined up willing to jump in and fill his role if he is not back by tomorrow. I do hope that he will come back, however that won't stop me from going and making the calls that I need to make if we are to continue without him."
Kevin continued his speech, however most of us knew what this meant. Mr. Man was gone. Out of the blue, it was as if he had committed acting suicide, leaving us on our own, abandoned and alone.
The play eventually goes up despite the major setback, and the sudden disappearance of Mr. Man in the community. The whole cast thinks that he will come to at least watch the play, however his morals disallow him to even watch something so offensive as blackface.
THE END
Song of the day: "I Turn My Camera On" By Spoon on their album Gimme Fiction
Moral of the story: Happy endings are for suckas
Sunday, November 28, 2010
SLEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP
Well I am about to pass out, so this will be a short post. I guess I will have to go against my last post where I said that giving you the music without the story is cheap, meaningless, and empty.
Anyway, today's music is also a song that people at the Nerd Store liked on my ipod. This weeks song is "Blackout City" By Anamanaguchi on their album Dawn Metropolis.
Fun Fact: Anamanaguchi did the soundtrack for the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World video game.
Moral of the story: Don't post a long post when you get back from the nerd store at 3 in the morning.
Anyway, today's music is also a song that people at the Nerd Store liked on my ipod. This weeks song is "Blackout City" By Anamanaguchi on their album Dawn Metropolis.
Fun Fact: Anamanaguchi did the soundtrack for the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World video game.
Moral of the story: Don't post a long post when you get back from the nerd store at 3 in the morning.
Sorry I'm Late to the New Tradition Already
Disclaimer: The person I am calling a douchebag in this post is not that bad of a guy, I am just upset I lost to him and all I am doing is Joshing him. (Joshing = giving him a hard time)
Boom 2 posts in a theoretical 2 days. What more can you ask from someone?
Well, I feel awkward telling you about some sweet tunes without first telling you about my day. It would be like making ramen noodles and not drinking the broth.
Today was a good day. I went to the Nerd Store in Russell which is always a good time. I did get really angry however, because I lost an ongoing tournament nerd battle to a guy I consider to be le bag de douche. It was a game that the owner of the store had to pull some string in order to get the alleged douchbag to play. Everyone wanted me to win too, because I am not alone in thinking this guy is a douche baguette.
Basically the way the nerd game is played is by setting up little miniature models of orcs and aliens and superhumans, and having them battle by rolling dice to see if they hit with their attacks, or wound, ect (1 is bad 6 is good).
Well right from the beginning things were not going in my favor, we had to set up our models in a way that was really unfavorable for me. After that it became apparent that I had offended the dice Gods in some way, because I would end up rolling 1s for almost everything that was vital in that game. Nothing makes a player of this game more angry that bad dice, however the fact that he was rolling REALLY WELL didn't help my mood either. The other thing that didn't help my mood either was that fact that whenever he would kill one of my guys he would say "squish" or some other bag doucharry remark.
But today was a good day despite all of this. I'm really looking to make non-mental patient friends up in the Berkshires. Since the Stockbridge area is pretty much full of the dead and or dying I think the Nerd Store is the perfect place to go to make friends who can still walk unassisted. Basically I'm trying to set myself up with some man dates with these Nerd Store people so I can actually go out and have a social life that isn't across the country.
Anyway, despite the fact that the owner of the store was angry I lost to the D-bag. I found out that he has invited me to play racquetball with him and his friends. So before I even knew it-SHAZAM- I got a man date.
On top of all of this the place sells amazing pizza. So... Awesome?
Today's song is a song that I found out a guy at the Nerd Store had on his ipod. Normally the people at the Nerd Store tease me for having bad west coast music, this guy included. Yet, this song managed to unify the tastes of the west and east coasts in in awesomeness.
The song is "Rapper's Delight" By the SugarHill Gang. It is on a lot of different albums on itunes and comes in a lot of different versions; so I won't name an album.
Moral of the Story: Basecamp Pizza is a place for good friends and good food (This better get me a discount Fish).
Boom 2 posts in a theoretical 2 days. What more can you ask from someone?
Well, I feel awkward telling you about some sweet tunes without first telling you about my day. It would be like making ramen noodles and not drinking the broth.
Today was a good day. I went to the Nerd Store in Russell which is always a good time. I did get really angry however, because I lost an ongoing tournament nerd battle to a guy I consider to be le bag de douche. It was a game that the owner of the store had to pull some string in order to get the alleged douchbag to play. Everyone wanted me to win too, because I am not alone in thinking this guy is a douche baguette.
 |
| Wouldn't his legs not be able to support his over sized body? |
Basically the way the nerd game is played is by setting up little miniature models of orcs and aliens and superhumans, and having them battle by rolling dice to see if they hit with their attacks, or wound, ect (1 is bad 6 is good).
Well right from the beginning things were not going in my favor, we had to set up our models in a way that was really unfavorable for me. After that it became apparent that I had offended the dice Gods in some way, because I would end up rolling 1s for almost everything that was vital in that game. Nothing makes a player of this game more angry that bad dice, however the fact that he was rolling REALLY WELL didn't help my mood either. The other thing that didn't help my mood either was that fact that whenever he would kill one of my guys he would say "squish" or some other bag doucharry remark.
But today was a good day despite all of this. I'm really looking to make non-mental patient friends up in the Berkshires. Since the Stockbridge area is pretty much full of the dead and or dying I think the Nerd Store is the perfect place to go to make friends who can still walk unassisted. Basically I'm trying to set myself up with some man dates with these Nerd Store people so I can actually go out and have a social life that isn't across the country.
Anyway, despite the fact that the owner of the store was angry I lost to the D-bag. I found out that he has invited me to play racquetball with him and his friends. So before I even knew it-SHAZAM- I got a man date.
 |
| Apparently it is supposed to be a sport... |
On top of all of this the place sells amazing pizza. So... Awesome?
Today's song is a song that I found out a guy at the Nerd Store had on his ipod. Normally the people at the Nerd Store tease me for having bad west coast music, this guy included. Yet, this song managed to unify the tastes of the west and east coasts in in awesomeness.
The song is "Rapper's Delight" By the SugarHill Gang. It is on a lot of different albums on itunes and comes in a lot of different versions; so I won't name an album.
Moral of the Story: Basecamp Pizza is a place for good friends and good food (This better get me a discount Fish).
Friday, November 26, 2010
New Tradition
It has come to my attention that we don't have any traditions on my blog, aside from the ones we already have. So I was thinking: what can I do to make my blog different from all the other blogs in the world? Well the answer came in the form of a song called "Tangled Up With You" By the Mumlers. I got to thinking "This is a good song." Next I thought "Other people need to hear this good music." Finally I thought "I can put it on my blog and hopefully expand the music tastes of my 8 blog readers... GENIUS." Not only does my rival Bob not do that, but as far as I know my Brother doesn't do that either.
Sadly I cant put mp3s on my blog because of satanic music laws, however I can tell you the daily name of the song, the album, and the artist of the song.
Today's song is...you guessed it "Tangled Up With You" By the Mumlers on their album Don't Throw Me Away.
Moral of the Story: My Blog is unique in doing this groundbreaking thing. I will call it "recommending".
you can find my brothers blog here: http://booksandbrews.tumblr.com/
 |
| Pictured Above: Lieutenant Bob G |
Sadly I cant put mp3s on my blog because of satanic music laws, however I can tell you the daily name of the song, the album, and the artist of the song.
Today's song is...you guessed it "Tangled Up With You" By the Mumlers on their album Don't Throw Me Away.
Moral of the Story: My Blog is unique in doing this groundbreaking thing. I will call it "recommending".
you can find my brothers blog here: http://booksandbrews.tumblr.com/
Thursday, November 25, 2010
"Yes We Take Requests."
This is a special Thanksgiving post by request from my Father.
He wanted to me to post about what happened today.
Oh don't worry Dad I will post about what you had in mind, but I will do it in a haiku:
We ate smoked Turkey
Forgot to open the chimney
Living in a smoked house
if you don't understand that one here's another:
My life is happy
Here come the fire trucks zoom zoom
My life is now sad
I'm realizing that I'm making it sound like we burned the new house down:
Dad left the flue shut
No the house didn't burn down
it just got smokey
Not much to say really, you people must think that I have been in a poetic mood lately.
Moral of the story: Smoked turkeys are omens
He wanted to me to post about what happened today.
Oh don't worry Dad I will post about what you had in mind, but I will do it in a haiku:
We ate smoked Turkey
Forgot to open the chimney
Living in a smoked house
if you don't understand that one here's another:
My life is happy
Here come the fire trucks zoom zoom
My life is now sad
I'm realizing that I'm making it sound like we burned the new house down:
Dad left the flue shut
No the house didn't burn down
it just got smokey
Not much to say really, you people must think that I have been in a poetic mood lately.
Moral of the story: Smoked turkeys are omens
Saturday, November 20, 2010
I Wrote This at the Nerd Store in Five Minutes
I am a "Common Man".
Of this I am not a fan.
Although I don't understand,
why I live with this extremely boring band.
I have come to accept that I am part of a clan.
That is telling me not to be me till I am a old man
Don't Judge me I love shitty poetry. Especially when I write it.
Moral of the story: I am not Oscar Wilde
Of this I am not a fan.
Although I don't understand,
why I live with this extremely boring band.
I have come to accept that I am part of a clan.
That is telling me not to be me till I am a old man
Everywhere I see content for that which is fair
Everything is fine if it is burnt down and bare
Eventually I’ll see the beauty that lies in me and my people’s lives
Except for now I will keep my prejudices and believe that we don’t have jive
But isn’t having prejudice part of my creed?
Are we not supposed to fear that which is different?
Shunning that which is part of a different breed.
I am not sure why, but it’s what we do to be efficient.
Don’t act like you cannot understand why I hate
Everything I do is simply innate
No one can escape our hurtful habits
Of this I know for I have seen it in abbots
You may laugh at these silly rhymes
However, if you do it is only to avoid your crimes
Which I have seen in your thoughts and actions
You to would do what I have done in my interactions
Don't Judge me I love shitty poetry. Especially when I write it.
Moral of the story: I am not Oscar Wilde
Monday, November 15, 2010
Shticks
Bob got me thinking the other day. Although that is generally an activity that I try to avoid, most of the time it is impossible to see coming. He was telling me how his one of his big gimmicks on his blog was that he named every post after a song title. I don't do anything like that, so I got to thinking: what would my gimmick be? My first thought was that my gimmick could be that my blog is very uninteresting to read, however that wasn't so much a gimmick as a drawback.
Then I looked at the question again. What is my Gimmick? My blog may not have one, but what about me? This thought made me very upset because I knew I would have to reflect on myself as a person and look at my past, present and perhaps future, three things I don't like looking at.
As I reminisced about my past I saw a common theme in my life: I always tried to be the nice guy. Now before all you people who actually know me get to saying things like "Hey Evan, what about the time you burned down my house because you thought my golden retriever gave you the stink eye?" To the people who say those things, I say read that sentence again; you will noticed I said I "tried" to be nice. One moment sticks out at me in particular when I was learning what being nice meant. I was in about 4th grade, when our class went on a class trip to some godforsaken land. My parents gave me some money to spend if I wanted to buy a souvenir, they told me I could keep it after the trip was over too. Anyway, I went on the trip, I don't remember much of it, but I do remember coming back and waiting for my parents to pick me up. Me and several of the other members of my class were sitting around the front lawn of the school when we started to talk about money. Just then I remembered that I had about 10 dollars left over from the trip, I decided that I should try to make the people around me happy so I took a dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to Molly, the girl sitting across from me. When she got that dollar her face lit up as if someone had just told her they now make pies that taste as good as cakes. I noticed that and said something along the lines of "If you liked that, you'll looovvveee this!" and took all the money out of my pocket and threw it in the air.
All the girls in my class rushed up and started picking the money around me. All of them started saying thinks like "Oh Evan you're so nice!" and "You are the most generous person I know Evan!" As some of my more hippity hopish friends would say "I made it rain on dem bitches." Needless to say I felt good. However as the years went by and I looked back on that event I felt more and more ashamed by it. Not because of my actions at the time. Heck I was in 4th grade, probably even younger than that. I didn't start being a conscious human being until I was in at least 9th grade. Rather, I thought perhaps that was just a microcosm (if that's the right word) of my life. Perhaps people only liked me for the stuff I gave them and not for the content of my character.
But I digress. the whole point is that I tried to be nice to the people around me, I wanted to try and do some random acts of kindness.
Right now I think my gimmick is that I am part of a mental hospital and have some good stories and interesting dilemma to deal with. Those are the things I should talk about in my blog.
However what will be my gimmick in the future?
I wont be a part of a mental hospital, I can't randomly give my friends money either. What will become of Evan when he goes back to college? Even more what will become of him when he graduates and has to live a normal life?
I'm getting tired of writing... I''m starting to think.
Moral of the story: Fear the Future
Then I looked at the question again. What is my Gimmick? My blog may not have one, but what about me? This thought made me very upset because I knew I would have to reflect on myself as a person and look at my past, present and perhaps future, three things I don't like looking at.
As I reminisced about my past I saw a common theme in my life: I always tried to be the nice guy. Now before all you people who actually know me get to saying things like "Hey Evan, what about the time you burned down my house because you thought my golden retriever gave you the stink eye?" To the people who say those things, I say read that sentence again; you will noticed I said I "tried" to be nice. One moment sticks out at me in particular when I was learning what being nice meant. I was in about 4th grade, when our class went on a class trip to some godforsaken land. My parents gave me some money to spend if I wanted to buy a souvenir, they told me I could keep it after the trip was over too. Anyway, I went on the trip, I don't remember much of it, but I do remember coming back and waiting for my parents to pick me up. Me and several of the other members of my class were sitting around the front lawn of the school when we started to talk about money. Just then I remembered that I had about 10 dollars left over from the trip, I decided that I should try to make the people around me happy so I took a dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to Molly, the girl sitting across from me. When she got that dollar her face lit up as if someone had just told her they now make pies that taste as good as cakes. I noticed that and said something along the lines of "If you liked that, you'll looovvveee this!" and took all the money out of my pocket and threw it in the air.
 |
| What I saw |
All the girls in my class rushed up and started picking the money around me. All of them started saying thinks like "Oh Evan you're so nice!" and "You are the most generous person I know Evan!" As some of my more hippity hopish friends would say "I made it rain on dem bitches." Needless to say I felt good. However as the years went by and I looked back on that event I felt more and more ashamed by it. Not because of my actions at the time. Heck I was in 4th grade, probably even younger than that. I didn't start being a conscious human being until I was in at least 9th grade. Rather, I thought perhaps that was just a microcosm (if that's the right word) of my life. Perhaps people only liked me for the stuff I gave them and not for the content of my character.
But I digress. the whole point is that I tried to be nice to the people around me, I wanted to try and do some random acts of kindness.
Right now I think my gimmick is that I am part of a mental hospital and have some good stories and interesting dilemma to deal with. Those are the things I should talk about in my blog.
However what will be my gimmick in the future?
I wont be a part of a mental hospital, I can't randomly give my friends money either. What will become of Evan when he goes back to college? Even more what will become of him when he graduates and has to live a normal life?
I'm getting tired of writing... I''m starting to think.
Moral of the story: Fear the Future
Monday, November 8, 2010
7:30am Bedtime for a Good Reason
There are not many good reasons why someone should go to bed at 7:30 in the morning. The only reasons I can think of are reasons from Sci-fi movies (aliens invade, alien zombies, alien insomnia). Yet the reason I stayed up this late was just as valid. It was for a good old fashion intellectual discussion (I had to spell-check intellectual by the way).
Now I don't think of myself as a thinker. I generally stay in the beautiful, blissful house of ignorance. Yet today I must of had cabin fever because I opened the door to thought and left the igno-house without even packing a bag.
Believe me when I say that I should have packed a bag.
All of this started when I was on my weekly nerd store trip. While I was there I was with a group of fellow nerds who were just talking amongst themselves about local happenings. However, one of the nerds, a man who I generally think to be a nice guy, started saying some things that I considered to be subtly racist. Eventually the things this fellow started saying started to make me feel really uncomfortable, if not perturbed. Finally he capped it all off by telling the following story:
He and some of his friends were driving around one day when a Puerto Rican man (how they knew he was Puerto-Rican beats me) was jay walking in front of them. Now he started to walk really slowly giving the car the finger and the driver started to honk, some words got exchanged and tempered hit the breaking point. The driver of the car drove up next to the man jaywalking and the person in the passenger seat grabbed the Puerto Rican man in a headlock. The driver than drove off onto the highway dragging the Puerto Rican man along the side of the car. Eventually they let him go, but I am assuming, not until he was sufficiently bloodied.
Needless to say I was shocked when I heard the story. I was shocked and disgusted when I heard this story. Although the nerd who told it said he was only in the car and had nothing to do with it, I felt strongly repelled from him.
When I got back home later that night I told Bob what had happened. I always considered him to be more passionate about morals than me. So I wasn't surprised that when I told him the story he was even more disgusted than I was. Yet he also seemed upset that I didn't do anything. To be honest my reaction to the story when I was at the nerd store was less than ideal: I didn't want to rock the boat and I wanted to be friends with some of the people there, so when I heard the story I withdrew from the conversation for a while until it turned to a lighter more appropriate subject. However, Bob told me that he would have stepped in, and called the man out on the story. Challenging his beliefs and hopefully ensuring that everyone there was of the mindset that it was a horrible thing to do that to someone.
I didn't disagree with him that it was a horrible thing to do that to someone considering our generally accepted moral system. Yet, as always I had to play the devils advocate and say that I thought if I called the nerd out on the story might only cause him to become defensive and entrench himself more deeply into his beliefs.
Now I don't know if the nerd thought what happened in that car was acceptable or not, but as Bob said "by not doing anything about it you are silently agreeing with it". Maybe I shouldn't have used quotes but that the basic idea of what I think Bob said. Hopefully he will read this and explain what he said to me more clearly, maybe he will say something in the comments below, or even post on his own blog.
I wish I could go back in time and have the guts to say something to him when he told the story. I don't believe in a inherent good or a bad, but I do believe you shouldn't drag people along the highway because they jay walked in front of your car or are Puerto Rican. I don't even think I would have changed anything if I went back and said something, I might have had some people get pissed at me and become defensive. I just want to go back and say something so that I feel like I did the morally right thing.
I am curious what you guys think though. What should I have said? Should I have said anything at all? I'm going to assume that everyone who reads this blog thinks that dragging someone on the highway in a form of racist frontier justice is a bad idea. So tell me whats up. What do you feel I should have done? What do you think I should have done?
Now I don't think of myself as a thinker. I generally stay in the beautiful, blissful house of ignorance. Yet today I must of had cabin fever because I opened the door to thought and left the igno-house without even packing a bag.
Believe me when I say that I should have packed a bag.
All of this started when I was on my weekly nerd store trip. While I was there I was with a group of fellow nerds who were just talking amongst themselves about local happenings. However, one of the nerds, a man who I generally think to be a nice guy, started saying some things that I considered to be subtly racist. Eventually the things this fellow started saying started to make me feel really uncomfortable, if not perturbed. Finally he capped it all off by telling the following story:
He and some of his friends were driving around one day when a Puerto Rican man (how they knew he was Puerto-Rican beats me) was jay walking in front of them. Now he started to walk really slowly giving the car the finger and the driver started to honk, some words got exchanged and tempered hit the breaking point. The driver of the car drove up next to the man jaywalking and the person in the passenger seat grabbed the Puerto Rican man in a headlock. The driver than drove off onto the highway dragging the Puerto Rican man along the side of the car. Eventually they let him go, but I am assuming, not until he was sufficiently bloodied.
Needless to say I was shocked when I heard the story. I was shocked and disgusted when I heard this story. Although the nerd who told it said he was only in the car and had nothing to do with it, I felt strongly repelled from him.
When I got back home later that night I told Bob what had happened. I always considered him to be more passionate about morals than me. So I wasn't surprised that when I told him the story he was even more disgusted than I was. Yet he also seemed upset that I didn't do anything. To be honest my reaction to the story when I was at the nerd store was less than ideal: I didn't want to rock the boat and I wanted to be friends with some of the people there, so when I heard the story I withdrew from the conversation for a while until it turned to a lighter more appropriate subject. However, Bob told me that he would have stepped in, and called the man out on the story. Challenging his beliefs and hopefully ensuring that everyone there was of the mindset that it was a horrible thing to do that to someone.
I didn't disagree with him that it was a horrible thing to do that to someone considering our generally accepted moral system. Yet, as always I had to play the devils advocate and say that I thought if I called the nerd out on the story might only cause him to become defensive and entrench himself more deeply into his beliefs.
Now I don't know if the nerd thought what happened in that car was acceptable or not, but as Bob said "by not doing anything about it you are silently agreeing with it". Maybe I shouldn't have used quotes but that the basic idea of what I think Bob said. Hopefully he will read this and explain what he said to me more clearly, maybe he will say something in the comments below, or even post on his own blog.
I wish I could go back in time and have the guts to say something to him when he told the story. I don't believe in a inherent good or a bad, but I do believe you shouldn't drag people along the highway because they jay walked in front of your car or are Puerto Rican. I don't even think I would have changed anything if I went back and said something, I might have had some people get pissed at me and become defensive. I just want to go back and say something so that I feel like I did the morally right thing.
I am curious what you guys think though. What should I have said? Should I have said anything at all? I'm going to assume that everyone who reads this blog thinks that dragging someone on the highway in a form of racist frontier justice is a bad idea. So tell me whats up. What do you feel I should have done? What do you think I should have done?
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Truth About Custom License Plates
I know it is easy to make fun of people who have custom license plates. How can it not be when some people go around with license plates that say "SHAZAMM". However it is also easy to forget that they might be the best people you can trust on the road, or perhaps trust in general.
You will never see someone with a vintage plate get away with a hit and run, bank robbery, or drive by. Why? Because when they are driving away from the scene, the victim can always look at their plate. You will always remember who mugged you for life if the the getaway car said "I<3MYBUT"
Moral of the story is obvious today: Trust people who have a custom plate.
 |
| Of course she would be from New Jersy |
You will never see someone with a vintage plate get away with a hit and run, bank robbery, or drive by. Why? Because when they are driving away from the scene, the victim can always look at their plate. You will always remember who mugged you for life if the the getaway car said "I<3MYBUT"
 |
| I never joke |
Moral of the story is obvious today: Trust people who have a custom plate.
 |
| Hey, you would definitely remember him if he tried to mug you. |
Monday, November 1, 2010
"Let Me Try Your Wu-Tang Style." aka "Baba O'Riley" aka Setting Things Straight aka How I Am What I Am
I might not have given a great introduction of who I am when I first started this blog. Although I did say several vital things about my life: "I am a human male. I also enjoy hats." -Evan Ryan October 25, 2010, 12:40pm. I have heard form you, the people, that I have spoken to little of myself and my past. Well my good people settle down with a nice warm cup of tea and/or hot chocolate, and prepare to read and/or skim the blog post in which I attempt to introduce myself.
A warning to the readers of this post: Not all of what you are about to read is going to be fun and jovial (hopefully you think this has been somewhat fun and jovial so far). In fact as it turns out the things that allow me to laugh the most are generally the things that hurt me the most at the time. Explaining that might be another post altogether.
I guess I should start this story with something that makes most people both laugh and cry: childbirth. I never asked to be born. The responsibility of life was thrust upon me like sack of old dirty beans onto the back of an unsuspecting Frenchman. This, when you think about it, strange ritual of birth happened on September 14th 1990 year of our lord. My Father, a fan of the not yet released Pokemon, suggested that I be named Voltorb. My Mother, a fan of the still uninvented Digimon, suggested Zephrymon. Thankfully, the doctor who delivered me, who thankfully was a fan of real life, suggested Evan. My parents begrudgingly agreed only because they could not agree between Voltorb and Zephrymon.
Childhood was spent creating versions of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro. My version usually included me wearing underwear on my head acting as Spiderman, singing the Batman theme. Most of artistic creations were not appreciated by the family. No they didn't tell me to stop, or put me down in any way, however I don't think they grasped the subtleties of my work: the commentaries on the Clinton Era, the degradation of society due to the prevalence of postmodernism. All they seemed to do was say task rhetorical questions like "Who's our big boy?" and "Who's the cutest Evan in the world?". Even though I would always answer "Me." they seemed to keep asking similar questions. This caused me to eventually ask if I was giving them the right answer.
Eventually I reached an age where things started to make a little more sense (unlike my blog), and I started to formulate a view of the world. This was at the age where I started to go to Elementary school. This world view usually consisted of me as the center of the world. Things haven't changed much. I could talk about the escapades I went on during this time in my life. However not only were they few and far between, but also I like to think it holds little relevance to what I am today.
The relevant-to-now part of the story picks up my senior year of high school. During this time I was about as average as one gets, I had a normal amount of friends, a normal amount of social awkwardness, and I had a normal value on the teenage self worth scale or Graduate Rating And Determining Experimental System G.R.A.D.E.S. I even was an average wrestler on the mat.
Now I have reached a point that a have a lot of trouble describing what happens. One day I was driving back from school carpooling a fellow wrestler after a particularly hard post season practice. I told him I needed to stop at home before I dropped him off to grab some water, because I was beginning to get very dehydrated. As I pulled in front of my house I immediately noticed the police cars with their hard lights rotating in the daylight, but their sirens were stone quiet. My dad was outside talking to an officer and as soon as he saw me pull into the driveway he walked up to the car and told me to come talk with him.
"Mom's gone"
.......
..............................
......
I was 18. Legally I was an man. Supposedly I should be able to handle the suicide of a family member.
I couldn't do it. I used every coping method I had in my arsenal. I cried. I cried more times in one week than I had in the past several years of my life. I tried to pretend everything was normal. The next day I went to an end of season party that was held at my friends house. I joked. Joking was a way I would deal with a lot of rough situations in my life. However, joking wasn't suited for dealing with the death of a loved one. Finally I turn to the only thing I had left: I went numb.
This seemed like the only thing I could do to deal with the guilt, the shame, the sorrow, the anger, and the regret, that came with thoughts of my mother. Although it did work for a short period of time following my Mothers passing. Not dealing with those feelings would eventually threaten my safety.
So I went to college. The wonderful Colorado College if you were wondering. I expanded my views, met new friend, and tried to end my life twice.
The first time I tried to kill myself in college was with the medicine I was currently taking, prozac. Maybe some of you are thinking "I didn't know you could hurt yourself with anti depressants." The answer is apparently no because I took a bottle and a half of the stuff and all I did was throw up several times.
The second time I tried to end it with fire.
I ended up in the hospital
I ended up in a mental hospital
I worked my way out out of the mental hospital and now I am 5 minutes from it and I'm going back to school in January of 2011. Back to Colorado College.
I needed to reboot my life.
So there you have it. That's me. I tried to be brief so I can flush it out later in later posts (also I accidentally posted this prematurely and had to edit it). So the end of this post will be quite clumsy.
Evan
A warning to the readers of this post: Not all of what you are about to read is going to be fun and jovial (hopefully you think this has been somewhat fun and jovial so far). In fact as it turns out the things that allow me to laugh the most are generally the things that hurt me the most at the time. Explaining that might be another post altogether.
I guess I should start this story with something that makes most people both laugh and cry: childbirth. I never asked to be born. The responsibility of life was thrust upon me like sack of old dirty beans onto the back of an unsuspecting Frenchman. This, when you think about it, strange ritual of birth happened on September 14th 1990 year of our lord. My Father, a fan of the not yet released Pokemon, suggested that I be named Voltorb. My Mother, a fan of the still uninvented Digimon, suggested Zephrymon. Thankfully, the doctor who delivered me, who thankfully was a fan of real life, suggested Evan. My parents begrudgingly agreed only because they could not agree between Voltorb and Zephrymon.
Childhood was spent creating versions of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro. My version usually included me wearing underwear on my head acting as Spiderman, singing the Batman theme. Most of artistic creations were not appreciated by the family. No they didn't tell me to stop, or put me down in any way, however I don't think they grasped the subtleties of my work: the commentaries on the Clinton Era, the degradation of society due to the prevalence of postmodernism. All they seemed to do was say task rhetorical questions like "Who's our big boy?" and "Who's the cutest Evan in the world?". Even though I would always answer "Me." they seemed to keep asking similar questions. This caused me to eventually ask if I was giving them the right answer.
Eventually I reached an age where things started to make a little more sense (unlike my blog), and I started to formulate a view of the world. This was at the age where I started to go to Elementary school. This world view usually consisted of me as the center of the world. Things haven't changed much. I could talk about the escapades I went on during this time in my life. However not only were they few and far between, but also I like to think it holds little relevance to what I am today.
The relevant-to-now part of the story picks up my senior year of high school. During this time I was about as average as one gets, I had a normal amount of friends, a normal amount of social awkwardness, and I had a normal value on the teenage self worth scale or Graduate Rating And Determining Experimental System G.R.A.D.E.S. I even was an average wrestler on the mat.
Now I have reached a point that a have a lot of trouble describing what happens. One day I was driving back from school carpooling a fellow wrestler after a particularly hard post season practice. I told him I needed to stop at home before I dropped him off to grab some water, because I was beginning to get very dehydrated. As I pulled in front of my house I immediately noticed the police cars with their hard lights rotating in the daylight, but their sirens were stone quiet. My dad was outside talking to an officer and as soon as he saw me pull into the driveway he walked up to the car and told me to come talk with him.
"Mom's gone"
.......
..............................
......
I was 18. Legally I was an man. Supposedly I should be able to handle the suicide of a family member.
I couldn't do it. I used every coping method I had in my arsenal. I cried. I cried more times in one week than I had in the past several years of my life. I tried to pretend everything was normal. The next day I went to an end of season party that was held at my friends house. I joked. Joking was a way I would deal with a lot of rough situations in my life. However, joking wasn't suited for dealing with the death of a loved one. Finally I turn to the only thing I had left: I went numb.
This seemed like the only thing I could do to deal with the guilt, the shame, the sorrow, the anger, and the regret, that came with thoughts of my mother. Although it did work for a short period of time following my Mothers passing. Not dealing with those feelings would eventually threaten my safety.
So I went to college. The wonderful Colorado College if you were wondering. I expanded my views, met new friend, and tried to end my life twice.
The first time I tried to kill myself in college was with the medicine I was currently taking, prozac. Maybe some of you are thinking "I didn't know you could hurt yourself with anti depressants." The answer is apparently no because I took a bottle and a half of the stuff and all I did was throw up several times.
The second time I tried to end it with fire.
I ended up in the hospital
I ended up in a mental hospital
I worked my way out out of the mental hospital and now I am 5 minutes from it and I'm going back to school in January of 2011. Back to Colorado College.
I needed to reboot my life.
So there you have it. That's me. I tried to be brief so I can flush it out later in later posts (also I accidentally posted this prematurely and had to edit it). So the end of this post will be quite clumsy.
Evan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)