letter to m

M, I have to get up and out of this house, so I'm only able to furnish you with a brief response, In which, I will attempt to dispel, once and for all, any of this nonsense concerning the media industry. Like most others, the media industry is overrun by charlatans and patsies. A shameful group of pretentious and heavily misguided bamboozelers, that categorically purport their vicious bullshit, onto decent people like you and me. What I'm trying to say, is that the media is a branch, a twisted and withered miserable rotting offshoot, by design and practice, touting out only the most convenient and conventional of ideology. In most cases, so if you feel discouraged, maybe you're asking for a job from a firm you deep down don't care to work for. your intuition could be guiding you subconsciously. Listen to the words you used: schemes, recruitment. If they make you feel like shit there, they're not looking for you, and you are not looking for them. find out which avenues of media, free press maybe? you are interested in working for, you should be able to identify that group by: a load of independent research, and in all likelihood, members of such organizations tend to be infinitely less dismissive, after all, there are those who learn to unearth the truth, and those that will learn to dismiss it, and entire firms are built around these two models. you want to work for a leg of the parliament, military industrial complex? you'll make a lot of money, and will need to spend the next few lifetimes paying off karmic debt. you want to go the subversive route and get a job in independent media, i think you'll learn a lot more, and be much happier and more interesting, but will probably go to jail a few times. my advice to you is to quite literally say something crucial, somewhere where everyone will see it, where it will go as an aside on some page of history, like that kid from florida at the kerry speech, and an entire world, albeit small and relatively powerless, of employment opportunity will open up to you. that kid is now an intern for greg palast. do some investigative journalism. have fun. your parents will support you. you're young, don't get tangled up with some corporation, some track. or do whatever, after all, there is no absolute truth and you could never be sure that anything, carried to it's final effect, makes a bit of difference in the grand scheme. so just whatever you do, find yourself doing something relatively enjoyable. you don't have to pay any dues working with shitty people if you don't want it. that, is a choice, that they could go to great lengths to make you think you don't have. -Asa

airports

nothing entertains me like spending time in the airport. from the overpriced sweatshirts, to the way people climb over each other to be the first in line when they begin boarding the B section, it all makes me want to break into hysterical laughter. Most of the time, however, I simply glance around myself and wait, munching on (only slightly less overpriced) food, store bought in none other than the hub of health, home to an active minority of righteous and unassailable peace Nazis: Berkeley, CA, for the next spectacle of hilarity i get to giggle about. I wait with the same unyielding anticipation people must feel when their favorite soapy hoke HBO series, leaves them at the end of the season with some critical unknown, and I get to hear about for the next endless stretch of the offseason. And then, with a dollop of sweet luck, I may chance upon a lot of miserable business travelers, drowning themselves in Martinis at a lifeless and extortionate airport bar. A bar whose nearest non-aviatory counterpart, would need to square their distance from the airport, and multiply it by their, still somewhat overpriced rates in order to begin to rank in relative egregiousness. And then, in the midst of their merriment, each become simultaneously ensnared in the aesthetic trap, set by some scantily-clad 16 year old, off to see her sickly grandmother in Pittsburg. For a brief moment in perfectly shameless awe, transfixed on the young Mata Hari. Rare is the opportunity to be blessed by moments such as these. Then, as soon as I thought the fun might be in danger of tapering off, something magic happens, I start losing it, and pining for the one thing they wouldn't admit at security check: liquid-filled containers in excess of 6 oz. I can't get enough of them, sealed bottles of water, coffee, an endless list Should I buy an Oprah list paperback for 25 bucks? Maybe an eight and a half dollar candy cane filled with chocolate raisins? Maybe I'll drive a cement truck off a bridge and into the ocean first. Leave it up to the establishment to tell you what you want. It's drivel, dry and empty concepts, hungry for substance and clamoring about in a pool of concepts. run for the hills, or run for office, no matter if it doesn't matter to you. follow the tracks, and take a train, everyone is headed somewhere, might as well let yourself be taken, instead of crawling there on your hands and knees. on the way there, to the next moment, take a look around you, feel decent, let that happen, the answer is that you're both in control. i will feel empty and delivered from this position, but it will have to come to pass, it won't do otherwise.

i give up

i think, i am relatively sure that, some kid, who looked like he might as well have as much going for him as i do right now, if not more on account of his age in conjunction with a functioning ipod, was about to steal my bike, again. it's mere speculation, but he looked decidedly out of place, in the rear parking lot of my apartment complex, having come in the out way, the sneakier of the two ways, all he managed to steal was a glance at me, upon doing so he started (minimally so) and set himself on a reverse trajectory, back onto the path of righteousness. this bike, i thought to myself upon aquiring it, is perfect for me, ergonomically superior to my road bike, i had previously considered universally undesireable, (but i happen to be curiously endeared by) an inarguably effeminate cream yellow. I thought sufficient to deter any self-respecting male thief, that it was without a doubt, not worth the risk of stealing. There is a wisdom, kept mostly by the elderly depression era mentality that i've spent the majority of my life trying to reason away as invalid and as you yourself may have already discovered in avoiding incidences of theft. and yet, here i have some kid, supposedly in the height of subscription to gender norms, making off with a bike designed in it's entirety, in all capacities short of a hot pink paint job, and a plume of tassles cascading from the end of the handlebars, for a girl. what's the draw? what has become of heteronormativity? and what was I doing when long-celebrated American pastimes like brush clearing and sack racing take a back seat to stealing chick's bikes? An what about beating up fat kids and pushing nerds around? Can there be anything more righteous and self-affirming than expressing your disapproval for deviance in blows? And furthermore, I thought the educational system here was touting meaningless drivel and strapping them with inordinate amounts of homework, to hasten their transformation to adulthood, and rob them of the experiences that could potentially serve as a frame of reference, tipping them off to the presence of a cohesive system of injustice they will endure as they mature into pawnhood. god forbid, this come to pass, lest we lose our children, our hope for the future of corporate expansion and consolidation, to childhood. how perfectly tragic would that be? people should eventually feel as if they are unable to succeed in the creative and imaginitive realm; and can be left will little doubt that they should easily champion the region including the quantifiable, and well understood. but couldn't we be taking this too far? is it possible that we would be shooting ourselves in the foot at this step in reasoning, that if we teach them anything substantive, or anything at all, it could later spell disaster for the keepers of corporate reasoning? i say, rather than open ourselves up to that sort of risk, we sell the children to the corporations, when they reach a certain age (5 or so) and let them figure out what to do with them. after all, the resources and the champions of prevailing logic, are already
disposed to fulfill their bidding, these are the real helmsmen (and women) steering the course of reality. better yet, consolidate the world's supply of petroleum and styrofoam, burn down what's left of our forest's and rainforests and gentically engineer a microorganism to munch up that slimy seaweed that writhes about in the ocean and is responsible for generating the atmosphere. with any luck, we'll all suffocate by degrees and the earth will be left to its own devices; free to restore itself in whichever way it may deem fit, and more importantly, without meddling humans, in perfect and unadulterated serenity.

Dear T,
Admit it, it's a raquet. 20% vested? It's simply a legal sort of crime a slightly less sophisticated employment of the principals behind pump and dump. (Visionary Activist/ Sep 6th, 2007 / Caroline Casey, Catherine Austin Fittz) Of little consequence to you (for now), you just wait and monitor the sequence of events here on this planet over the next few decades -T, the burdened diplomat. I'll be the first to call it unbelievable, but the network of systems that have come into being recently are at risk of failing to operate in symbiosis with each other, and have already more than demonstrated their inability to coexist with some of the more well-established systems that came in the box when we inherited the earth. And institutions with emphasis on the establishment and maintenence of power and finance have set the user guide, authored by our ancestors, in the town square and charged you and I an admission fee to stand by as they turn our hope of balance to a smoldering heap of ashes. We are, if you will, in an accelerated state of deterioration, and these are precisely the sort of dealings that are to be blamed for it. I, can afford to take the hit. However, in an indirect fashion, I, you, everyone's potential is limited and tied up at the starting gates, with agonizing and hand wringing over petty injustices such as these! and where does this remaining 80% go off to? Rwanda? or into the gastank of some CEOs learjet. SB, I'd venture to guess, cannot possibly need this money as much as the average sub-saharan African, or even an up and-comer like myself, although, of late, I'm finding it more an more difficult to make a case for participating in this. After a few years working for a company like SB, I'd have to spend 10 earning my soul back from the devil. In short, I'm not comforted or moved in any way by your response, although I appreciate that you were good enough to provide me with a response at all. If anything I'm only more outraged at the lack of concern and subdued complicity you demonstrate in the face of such miserably damaging business practices. You have to understand that our US economy, is part of a single international economy, economies are intimately interconnected, and that singular economy has considerable bearing on the well-being of the planet's constituents, and the health of the earth itself, which supports you and i in a way that SB could never do. We are all in this together. You and I and everyone else. don't let them let you forget that. Maybe this job isn't your bag. Have you looked into the condition of domestic education lately? Get a teaching job or something, dump your money in a local credit union, support local business, check out a couple town hall meetings -see what's happening to us. you too could be just as outraged as I am. I bet, there are at least 3 or 4 forces that are cooking up deals that threaten the sanctity of your comminity as we speak, trying to cut down trees or build shopping malls, or add another Wal-Mart. They've already met with stunning success, and it's only because we're allowing ourselves to be bound and powerless, writhing in shame and self-doubt, in occupations that fail to fulfill us. Forget (your employer), guilty without trial, a wretched facilitator for a whole host of these organizations. And for what, to what end does it operate? Money, that's it, no service, just blood-spattered bank notes. T, we love you, I'll put up with this vanishing sum of money, just whatever you do, don't do this to yourself. I beg you. -Asa