stress builds character

I’m a pretty big film buff, a film fanatic of sorts, and so for my big return to COMMUNITY COLLEGE this fall I signed up for a class titled “Introduction to Film Analysis.” The professor is this jovial black man. I like him as a person, can’t fucking stand him as a teacher. It’s a couple of weeks in and there hasn’t been a single discussion about film. Not word one. Heard a lot about how much the government sucks, though. I mean, I’m pretty much ALL about smashing the state and shit, and I totally live the revolution (from my parents’ house) in almost the same way you chump burnouts breathe (in marijuana smoke) but I took this class to expand my film vocabulary, enrich my mind, and sharpen my ability to decipher the cryptography of art, not to hear about how much it sucks to be black in America. I sympathize, but seriously, a junior college teacher works maybe, what, fifteen hours a week? Tops. I work three times as much and go to school. Not to mention that as a tenured professor his job is secure, whereas I’ll probably get fired eventually on account of how lazy I can sometimes be. This class is really kind of disappointing. The two films we’ve watched in the class so far are Sicko and No End In Sight. Fuck, I wanted to watch a John Ford film or something. Learn the terminology, the texture of the medium. I guess maybe when you’re a more sophisticated film viewer (and generally unimpeachably amazing human being) like how I am, you become more and more difficult to satisfy.

If you happen to be reading this, I hope you’re prepared for some illiterate ass shit. I’m just a monkey banging on a keyboard. And I try to dispose of all the more pretentious flourishes commonly practiced by people my age who bang on keyboards. Nothing I hate more than reading something and thinking, “god, this person is twenty-four years old, and mildly well read.” Too much purple prose will make your dick fall off.

Today I picked up Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. I’m about halfway through and I know that it’s going to require a second reading. To catch all the details. I got the same feeling when I read Watchmen for the first time. All the little things hidden deep in and between the panels that I might have missed. It’s a very stimulating read (I’m totally into art and shit) and I’m surprised I hadn’t picked it up before. When I was very young, up until middle school, all I wanted to be was a comic book artist. I would spend my allowance on nice pens. Entire days dedicated to scribbling. In reality anything I’ve ever produced has most likely been pretty terrible, but in my own defense, I was like eleven. Followed all the advice in Wizard magazine, though. Wanted to draw superhero comics, capes and tights. Eventually, probably right when I got to high school I realized how miserable and hopeless life is and nothing you’re ever going to do is ever going to amount to shit and it’s better to just shove everything down into a little hole in your chest, and haven’t drawn a line since. Shoulda kept up with it. Maybe I’d be doing something worthwhile instead of sitting on my idiot fucking ass and posting in a fucking “blog” like I’m some kind of idiot fucking sheep or something.

Dystopia, Human=Garbage

God, this album so perfectly captures everything I hate about the world. I can barely fucking listen to it, it makes me feel so miserable and bummed out. Some days I just want to find some place dark and warm to crawl into and die. It would be easier that way. Why should I bother to do anything? Nothing good could ever come from these lame hands and this dull, plodding brain. It’s not worth the effort. Days grind on endlessly and smear into one gray shitstain. Sure, maybe one day is marginally less torturous and shitty than the next, but not by much. I sleep until noon every day and work the rest of it, and this is the level accomplishment we all should get used to because that’s what the system is geared towards delivering. The only escape available and the only event worth looking forward to is death.

Fuck, the “take this job and shove it” rant that opens this album is so goddamned on point it’s ridiculous.

I’m reminded of Office Space: “ever since I started working, each day has been worse than the last. So on any particular day you see me, that’s the worst day of my life.”