June 30, 2005
Talking Heads
In days of old, when times were cold, and knights went to their castles, what did they do without talk radio? I have to admit, I listen to a shit ton of “talking heads”. What a great way to blow off some steam and stay up-to-date with the times. There is nothing better than listening to someone HAMMER our dumb-ass president, or hearing about what big deal the Cubs might be making before the trade deadline. It’s just plain fun and comforting to hear other people’s voices during that drive to work. Just the other day for example, I listened to a guy who could fart the “Star Spangled Banner”, heard two COMPLETELY different takes on Bush’s speech, and heard that the Cubs might trade for Preston Wilson from the Rockies. WOW… Point made.
With my love for this medium of communication, I do see the downfalls. One of the most important things to do is to listen to a lot of different types of talkers (especially with politics). This way, you can take all of their biased opinions and sister it with the BBC news (and some American “news”) to develop your own opinions. I think this is were most people get tainted by talk radio. They listen to the same biased opinions everyday and start to “drink the Koolaide”. For every “Ed Schultz Show”, you need to listen to one “Savage Nation” (that guy makes me vomit a little bit inside my mouth, but I try to listen). The point is, people need to be exposed to all kinds of different opinions in able to talk intelligently about something, but thats all it is, OPINIONS. These people are entertainers, NOT THE NEWS.
A rant for another time: How can “news” be called “news” when it is delivered in a biased way? FOX NEWS, could you answer that question? At least these “Talking Heads” are up front with what their agendas are… My parents think that FOX shit is REAL NEWS. Throw America a bone here.
June 29, 2005
Art Wednesday… Yeah!
This edition of “Art Wednesday” should be pretty fascinating. In 2001, I learned of this amazing feat. I thought the images were Photoshopped at first glance… I guess that everything IS possible.
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Romantic Calling
“They called me,” he later explained. “I didn’t choose them. Anything that is giant and manmade strikes me in an awesome way and calls me. I could secretly… put my wire… between the highest towers in the world. It was something that had to be done, and I couldn’t explain it… it was a calling of the romantic type.”
A Dream Is Born
Feigning a sneeze, Petit ripped the page from the newspaper and hastily left the office, prolonging his dental agony for several more days. “But what was it to have a toothache for another week,” he later recalled, “when what I had now in my chest was a dream?”
In Training
For the next six years, Petit patiently nurtured his dream, perfecting his skills as a high-wire artist and learning everything he could about the World Trade Center. In January 1974, now twenty-four years old, he flew to New York City for the first time in his life to put his daring plan into action. After months scouting the towers, including posing as a journalist to interview Port Authority executive Guy Tozzoli, he set to work on the evening of Tuesday, August 6. While one group of colleagues made its way up the north tower, Petit and two friends slipped up to the top of the south tower, carrying their concealed equipment, including a disassembled balancing pole, wire for rigging, 250 feet of one-inch braided steel cable, and a bow and arrow.
Stepping Into the Void
It took all night to complete the rigging, securing the steel cable a quarter of a mile in the sky across the 130-foot gap separating the towers. Wall Street was just beginning to come to life when, at a little past seven on the morning of August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit stepped onto the wire stretched out across the void.
Spellbinding
On the street below, people stopped in their tracks — first by the tens, then by the hundreds and thousands — staring up in wonder and disbelief at the tiny figure walking on air between the towers. Sgt. Charles Daniels of the Port Authority Police Department, dispatched to the roof to bring Petit down, looked on in helpless amazement. “I observed the tightrope ‘dancer’ — because you couldn’t call him a ‘walker’ — approximately halfway between the two towers,” he later reported. “And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire… And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle… He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again… Unbelievable really…. [E]verybody was spellbound in the watching of it.”
“Sentenced”
To the delight of the Port Authority, the exploit made front-page news around the world, and Petit himself became an instant folk hero. Thanks to the immense outpouring of public adulation for his performance, all formal charges against him were dropped, and the 24 year old was “sentenced” to perform his high-wire act for a group of children in Central Park.
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Check out the page I got this information from. It is amazing. Thanks PBS.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/newyork/peopleevents/p_petit.html
June 28, 2005
Weight Of My House
It has been pretty cool having extra people around the house all of the time. There is usually something to do or someone to talk to to. Just the other day I was sitting on my couch thinking, “Wow, if you were to weigh my house right now, it would be really heavy.” My only problem is that people are either working, or to tired to chicken around with me. Most of the time I feel like a puppy that just got out of the bath. I can not control the crazy shit that flies out of my mouth.
I have been really inward thinking lately. I guess that I use Carrie as my sounding board most of the time, and we have not had much time for each other lately. Whenever I get in this mindset, I think I feel a bit over sensitive to everything. I find myself laughing at stupid shit, and almost balling at other equally stupid shit. When did I become such an emotional roller coaster you ask? I will tell you.
I believe it started in the second grade. Mrs. Carrier, who I had a crush on, reprimanded me for talking to my friend Jeremy Clayes during the afternoon phonics lesson. I had no idea that someone who I liked so much could make me feel so ashamed of myself. I was not the same for weeks afterward. I am pretty certain, although I do not remember for sure, that I cried on the long walk home from school that day. I do remember however, punching my pillow a few times when I got home. Why would a kid have such an emotional break down over something so trivial and stupid? I don’t know, but I knew that I did needed to have it at that moment in my life, and I could not control it… The really funny thing is that I remember the embarrassment that I felt for myself, not the hatred that I would assume a child would feel for her.
I think it might be that moment that I realized I have a really short emotional fuse. Throughout the years I have worked on (or been beaten into) not being a sissy at the drop of a hat. Although, I seem to have relapses on a weekly basis… Especially when I have company… Not bad, for a sissy like me.
June 27, 2005
Four for One
I have never ridden a horse. It’s not like I don’t want to, I have never had the chance. This is kind of a rare thing for someone from the middle of Kansas. When I inform people of this fact, they generally look at me like I am a cross between a retarded lizard and cat litter. Is sitting on the back of a giant animal that big a freaking deal?
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I have never seen the movie “Finding Nemo”. It looks like a big piece of shit to me. I think I get the major plot points without even seeing the movie. Let me guess… Nemo get lost and they find him. WTF… With a title like that, why would anyone want to see this steamer? Captain Obvious must have been commissioned to think up that gem. No wonder our children no longer have an imagination.
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Have those venders in the middle of the mall ever sold anything? I have never even seen someone CLOSE to buying something from them. Maybe this is why they heckle you as you walk by… NO, I do not think your cheap, plastic, piece of shit airplane that comes back to you is cool. Pull that string and have it go straight up in the air all you want to, I am not going to talk to you… I hope these people work on commission.
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I wish I had a $2 bill right now. They are really interesting to look at. I used to collect them when I was a kid. One day that collection bit the dust when I bought a ton of Carlton Fisk baseball cards at “S&K Sports Cards and Collectables” (on Santa Fe). It was a good purchase, but I wish I could remember the look on the cashiers face when I handed her like $20 in two dollar bills.
