So apparently there are some new Air Jordans on the market and people are damn near killing each other for them. So down here, in the swamp that is H-Town, Quannel X says that priorities must change in the home, which is correct, but also calls out Michael Jordan and says he has a responsibility to lower the prices on the sneakers. In fact he goes on much longer about MJ than he does about the family values. Quannel is known around these parts as a rabble-rouser who calls himself a community activist and I honestly have no respect for him. I do agree that priorities need to change in the homes of the thugs who were trampling people for these shoes but I do not agree that MJ shoulders any blame at all in the actions of these crowds. Sure Quannel has a right to say that he does but it’s just plain ignorant. MJ has sold the rights to use his name to Nike who in turn uses it to promote their shoes. Neither MJ nor Nike is responsible for idiots who line up for sneakers and then act like animals trying to get them.
Let me be clear that this is not about the race of the idiots being violent. This has nothing to do with skin color. We saw ever race acting like morons on Black Friday for the same reasons and over less expensive items. People are morons regardless of the color of their skin. Acting like animals over consumer products is just idiotic. On Black Friday a man died in a store and people stepped over him and kept going. He didn’t get killed, he just died, and no-one stopped to help.
The manufactures and the stores selling the items are not responsible, in the least, for the actions of the morons who hurt people in order to further keep up with the Joneses. It is the sick society in which we live that allows this to happen and then blames everyone but the people perpetrating the violence. Until we begin to teach personal responsibility again this will only get worse.
I know my words aren’t that deep on this subject. I know I am not citing a lot of sources but this is fucking common sense folks. If you hit someone in the face in order to get a pair of sneakers, or a Barbie doll or anything else you are a thug and nothing more.
Well not really so much clowns or zombies or being eaten but I can’t sleep. I finally cleaned up the plugins, updated the theme and generally tweaked a few bits behind the scenes. So it’s back to irregular updates on random topics.
I have been thinking a lot about my post concerning nostalgia and I think I may have been wrong. I was on the right track but think I may have come to the wrong conclusions along the way. I can’t put it in to words just yet but there’s an idea or two floating around my few remaining synapses. I’ll get around to sorting it out soon enough.
I have a ton of stuff on my plate at the moment including my top albums list for 9b, which I need to get done before Christmas, so there’s not likely to be a lot around here until the holidays are over. I have a dozen things I want to spew words through the keyboard about but in reality things are just a bit hectic. I really should make the time to get this stuff down because it would make things in my head less confusing but if I could ever sleep I wouldn’t have the time. In the meantime you could always read my wife’s blog: /usr/bin/mom.
Before I fade in to the ether for quite possibly the rest of the year here are a couple of friends on mine sharing some Christmas music:
That’s it for tonight and if I don’t drop back by here before all is said and done then I hope you all have a merry Christmas and dammed happy new year. I know I will.
15
Dec
…of the plugins I have installed ’round here. Over the next few days I will be uninstalling most of my plugins, updating the theme, deciding what to keep and what to toss and generally paring down some the cruft that has collected on here over the last couple of years. So if things don’t work quite right on the site it’s likely because of that. Meanwhile enjoy my Christmas mix…
Two Cow Garage – Folksinger’s Heart
I have been known to be a little sentimental at times. I wrote a backend for a flash mp3 player that looks like a cassette tape (something that some of my children have never even seen used) for Pete’s sake. But I got to thinking the other night, while watching Midnight In Paris, about the “Good ol’ days”. As an aside the move was decent and the wife really liked it but I wouldn’t have watched it if I had noticed it was a Woody Allen film because that’s not my usual speed. This really wasn’t my speed but Luke Wilson made it tolerable. This movie is about a dude who wants to live in Paris (God knows why) and his wife who doesn’t. Well old boy discovers that at midnight he can escape to the Paris he really wants, which is the ’20s, and hang out with the likes of Picasso and Hemingway. Long story short: he eventually figures out that the present is where he belongs and yadda yadda yadda. Happy ending and all that rot. But it got me thinking and I realized that as much as I miss the seeming simplicity of the past that I don’t want to go back there at all. For the purposes of this exercise I mean my own past and not some romanticized version of another time altogether.
I enjoy slipping in to the past in the recesses of my own mind. Remembering nights fueled by desperation, caffeine and nicotine making mix tapes at Vic’s apartment. Desperately searching for that right mix of music that would convey exactly what I wanted to tell some girl. The poetry I wrote (if I am honest it was probably horrible but I don’t have any of it left to actually know) and the impossible sleep schedule we kept. Looking back through the right lenses makes this look like a romantic time in which I let my creative side show through and pretty much did whatever passion drove me to do but that’s only part of the picture. During that time frame I couldn’t hold a job, lived on friend’s couches, ate whatever friends and family had laying around and rarely even had my own smokes. It was for all intents and purposes a pretty miserable existence compared to what I have now. At least if I am being honest with myself.
I know that I am not the romantic figure I tried to make myself out to be back then. I mean I tried and all but in the end I was the same dork that I am today. Back then I didn’t even know who or what I was and if you asked me what I be like while I was looking down the barrel at forty I would have likely told you “dead” and been done with it. I didn’t have a future in my head back then but the one that I ended up with pretty much rocks. I know all of that stuff that I went through and the stuff I put myself through made me what I am today but in the interest of being honest I wouldn’t do it all again. Sure some of I would but not all of it by any means. I like to say I have no regrets and for the most part that’s true and the regrets I do have are resolved regrets if you know what I mean. Having no regrets is not the same as being willing to do it all again.
I don’t have any real special message to wrap this one up with. I don’t have a cute little bow and pretty paper with an uplifting message. I just have this: Overall I like my life and while I need to make some changes I wouldn’t want anything but what I have. Take that for what it is.
