I really thought I was pretty cool, but the more I look the less cool I seem to become. Everyone I see on the street is dressed EXACTLY THE SAME. And they all somehow think that they just like the way they happen to look like they all just decided on the same day seprately to wear the same things. I don't understand the pants, the hair, the extra articles of meaningless clothing, I just don't get it, and I thought I was pretty cool. I went to Manifest earlier, and the headliner band, OK GO, a pretty well-known I guess rock band was playing for free, so whatever lets go right? Maybe I'm just old-fashioned or whatever but I like to go to these kinds of things, even if it doesn't happen to be my exact cup of tea, just for the experience of it, to go out and see and hear some new stuff. When we got there, there was a huge crowd of people in front of the stage, and at first I was excited - it looked like an entertaining time, everyone having fun and whatnot. But when I got up closer to the crowd, i saw that an inordinate amount of people weren't even looking in the band's direction, were playing with their cell phones, standing in their little clique groups and more or less just taking up space. The music was mediocre at best, easy poppy sing along stuff, but the crowd wasn't even mildly interested. Every once and a while the vocalist would say something funny in between songs and elicit a laugh from the crowd, but that was about it. The culminating point of the event that really showed me what was going on was when the band played their last song, the song that everyone knew, the song that made the band famous, and I realized that no one in that crowd cared about music. They just wanted something that they already recognized, something they could sing along to without thinking about or exploring. As soon as the song was over almost the entire crowd began to disperse, almost immediately as in one second had passed. Its just disheartening as a hopeful musician to see the power of sameness and mindless stupid pop music has on the majority of any given audience.

Sometimes I really just want to be like Chris McCandless and just go out and live off of my back for the rest of my life, without being tied down to a place or most importantly to "things." Sure I like all of the shit I have - it's fun, it keeps me occupied with something to do, but I imagine just leaving all of it/giving it up etc. and it doesn't really bother me. I imagine what would I most likely run out of the house with if everything were to go up into flames. Most of the time I think I would just try to grab a guitar and make sure I had enough clothes on my back to make sure I wouldn't be cold. 

I am currently eating nearly plain brown rice because that is the only thing edible in a meal-like fashion in the apartment. Garlic cloves, and cinnamon help give it some much needed flavor though. Well besides peanut butter, but I ate most of it yesterday and almost became sick because I was so hungry. Its funny how something as simple as having enough food in the apartment, when you're busy with school work or not even that busy at all, is pretty difficult to actually keep buying food quick enough so that you don't go hungry for about a half a week. Not only is it depressing that I have to make time to get food=to survive, but it costs relatively a lot of money, and even more if you happen to want to eat healthy, which is just out of the question because i don't really have anything to spare and if it means the difference between eating healthy, instead of being full, then I'm gonna have to go with full.

I probably just saw the most disturbingly honest thing I've ever seen and it almost made me sick. I was just stumbling across the inter-webs when I landed on the site of a film that had been made, and it was free to view on their website. It was full feature length movie, and I didn't have anything better to do, so I decided what the heck, it seemed worth it. The first half alone was worth watching. It was basically a history lesson about how nearly all the worlds first religions, including Judaism and eventually Christianity are all just a result of ancient pagan astrology and that each religion can be traced back to the same exact recurring themes and metaphors - basically that all religions are the same, and they were all created the same way and for the same purpose, which was to keep the lower classes in their place. I really love history stuff like that, so I was already interested, but then it segues in the second half into a seemingly unrelated topic of US government and specifically the acts of 9/11. Eventually it comes out and says that no one else was responsible for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks other than the US itself - that the entire thing was a giant terrorist act planned and executed by the US government meant to scare people into blindly handing over their freedoms to the government. When I saw the footage in this film of the planes flying into the building and people screaming and running from the dust and accounts of being trapped inside, after just learning that OUR OWN GOVERNMENT had done it, I nearly broke down in tears. I wasn't really affected by it when it actually happened to be honest - I was in middle school at the time and I didn't really feel the weight of the event. But the fact alone that the institution meant to govern, protect and serve this country would actually consider doing something like it did turns m stomach into knots. All I can say is that I will never completely trust government ever again, not that I actually ever did, but this scares me more than anything I could ever imagine.

Zeitgeist the movie - it might be a little glitchy, if it starts talking about the pentagon in the beginning then you need to reload the page to start it from the beginning.

Thinking about getting a scooter someday, maybe even instead of a car. Aside from the obvious increase in danger-level due to the absence of two wheels which I think I can deal with, I can't really see a reason not to get one, at least when I can afford one. Sure they're probably the dorkiest looking things you could ever ride ever, but I couldn't care less really when everyone else is spending their entire paycheck to drive around for the week. The most expensive ones you can buy are about $6,000 which is about lowest I could pay for a nice used car maybe, and they get at least 60mpg - granted they only hold about 1.5 gallons, but thats about 90 miles right there, more than I would probably ever travel in even a month. There's just something that I don't like about cars and I never did. Maybe I'm just a product of my generation's adolescent attempts at being eco-friendly, but really living either in a city like here or in a more suburban place back home it works either way. There really isn't anywhere public transportation can't take you these days anyway. Though if i got one here I don't know how I would get it home if I wanted to.

As my analytical commercial watching had revealed earlier in the year, apparently greater America still abhors racial or ethnic mixing of any kind, and though I hardly look at popular culture to judge what may actually be the case for something, it saddens me that there aren't more interracial bands or music groups, even of a semi-underground nature. Not that being interracial for the sake of being interracial has really accomplished anything, but you think it would just be more prevalent as a matter of fact. And I suppose the groups out there that are composed of different races probably "for one reason or another" don't get as much airplay. Sure there is something aesthetic to be said for bands that have a cohesive look, in their dress or manner or whatever, but the more I go without seeing interracial groups it just begins to look  scary to me - all these bands that are just the same same same same. I guess in the end I shouldn't care what the band looks like and just worry about music - that is the lesson to be learned right? that appearance doesn't matter, but ultimately whether true or not it does say something about you when your band and all your audience is the same looking. I mean there's definitely something to be said for bands like Living Colour who really just went out there to break the mold of traditional metal music which was awesome, and it totally wouldn't have worked for them if they had like a white drummer or something but still. o;djffgkj

I love my parents to death but they are not in fact the invincible heroes of my childhood idolization. Its not that they do anything particularly weird or disturbing, its just that they're normal people too, and the older I get and the closer I become in age to them I see more of them as people and less of them as parents. Not in a bad way, but in a transitive, growing up kind of way. But so far its still like seeing your high school teacher at the grocery store and you don't really know what to do. Lollapalooza is going to be here this summer, and I wanted my brother to come visit me for basically the whole summer so he could go with me and we could hang out and jam and stuff. I knew my mom wasn't going to let her 17 year old son stay out in Chicago for about two months, but still I had to try. Also it made it not seem as bad when I asked if he could just stay for a week or so, which worked. But for some reason she won't get this idea out of her head that something terribly dangerous is going to happen to him "out here." I'm honestly more cautious and hesitant to travel through parts of my own home town more than any of the places I've been here in Chicago, but maybe thats just because I'm not used to it/I don't know better yet/or I really haven't gone anyplace that required being cautious. Most of my mind tells me its coming from that part of my parents minds that thinks "dangerous stuff" is "out there" in the wilderness beyond the comforts of their home, that gated community kind of mind set. Its natural to be wary of the unknown - but my brother gets into more trouble at home with his friends than he ever would out here with just me.

Its getting to that point where my studies of well-recorded music and studio techniques etc. are affecting my casual listening experience. I mean, my own personal music I have already been doing that to for a long time now, but I'm finding that my mild repulsion for and ignoring of pop(ular culture) music is becoming much more severe. Its probably because I realize the fact that these are geniuses or otherwise extremely skilled producer-types engineering this awfully inane noise, and that if I'm lucky I'll be where they are someday making my living off of half-talented pop artists who don't really care about music. :( Its unfortunate, but they say you aren't supposed to enjoy your job, and it seems this case is no exception. 

I cant stand alcohol. Actually what I really can't stand are people's blatant disregard of alcohol being an extremely addictive drug. Am I the only one who finds it scary that every single other college student must continually numb themselves to the world and voluntarily handicap themselves to deal with their existence? Am I the only one who sees this as a major contributing factor for eventual and lifelong unhappiness and sense of out-of-placeness? I know I must sound extremely naive, but honestly, whoever thinks theirs is the only life that is shit and that they are the only people who feel lonely and that alcohol is the only or most effective way to deal with it are truly naive. Other kids look at me quizzically when I tell them I just don't do any drugs. "But do you drink?" No. "Are you one of those 'straightedge' people?" What are you even talking about? Sigh. On a related topic, I recently read an article online about the persistence of people to believe in a God, even when all logic defies it, and when addressing the power religious beliefs have over our lives and how totally oblivious so many are to the manipulative effects of it, the author poses the question "When we observe how easily the mind may be altered by hypnosis or drugs, why do some of us appear to imagine that religion is quite incapable of performing the same trick?" 

This article is at http://www.suffolkhumanists.org.uk/node/640

Its funny how we think we are fighting to provide some people with a certain result, when what we should really be doing is allowing people their own choices. I'm taking a Women and Law class right now, just to fulfill credit requirements, and when asked what kind of living situation we would prefer, one classmate answered that her goal was to find a husband have kids and be a stay at home mom. In my own ignorance I had assumed that everyone who wanted to become a house wife only did so because they had no choice or didn't know any better. What a novel idea - a willing and able college educated woman actively seeking to become a housewife! That should be a reminder to all those self-righteous out there that just because people weren't allowed to do something and now they are doesn't mean they have to; or more precisely, just because something is an injustice to a group of people doesn't mean its so for a single person, and just because a person accepts a lifestyle considered in general to be discriminatory doesn't mean they are ignorant.