heavy rotation

here’s my top ten albums right now:

1. phoenix – wolfgang amadeus phoenix
just about the best possible thing you can think of that always sounds good and always makes you start shaking your head and tapping your feet. this is by far the poppiest record that hipsters think is good. which says something. or does it?

2. bon iver – for emma, forever ago
i think i am getting into this record late, technically, but i think in this case all that matters is that i got into it. way into it. this record is sitting me down and making me listen real hard. one of the best records i have ever heard. ONE OF THE BEST RECORDS I HAVE EVER HEARD. makes me want to quit everything and work for the rest of my life on making a record half as good as this one. not joking when i say that it’s probably in my top ten of all time.

3. the temper trap – conditions
yes track 3 is in about 400 commercials right now. yes track 3 is awesome. yes the rest of the album is just as good, and better. i don’t know how many albums you can say that about, but i don’t think it’s very many. that’s probably all i need to say. great record.

4. m. ward – hold time
m. ward has always been good, but his earlier albums seemed to lack the ability to make me want to keep playing them over and over and over and over and over and over….

5. owl city – ocean eyes
i’m not really going to say anything about this. i admitted my problem. that’s all you’re gonna get.

6. animal collective – merriweather post pavillion
i don’t like animal collective. never have. never will. except that i like animal collective. i think i like them more than i think i like them. gosh i love “my girls”.

7. landon pigg – the boy who never
landon pigg’s first album was already soft boiled. his new album is even worse. and it’s almost perfect. i can’t tell if he is losing it or if he just found it, but whatever it is, it makes for some really pretty songs about love. and all the other songs are about love too. oh landon, you’re so emo.

8. maritime – heresy and the hotel choir
i never liked ‘the promise ring’ all that much, but for some reason davey von bohlen’s maritime is really stinking great. i’m not sure exactly why i love this band so much, i just do. it’s like you have a bunch of ingredients that don’t seem like they would make a good recipe, but the end result is super delicious.

9. radiohead – in rainbows
eh, what can i say, it’s radiohead… *shrugs shoulders, acts embarassed* … if radiohead has a better album than this, it’s probably kid a, but in the big scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.

10. switchfoot – hello hurricane
i have no idea if i would like switchfoot if this album was the first i had ever heard of them, but i don’t care. i have always loved them and i think i always will.

turning 10 into 11, or 20

i dislike most things. i really do. wait, maybe this post should be accompanied by a disclaimer. actually, no, it doesn’t need one. read at your own risk. i guess that’s a disclaimer. eh. i already failed.

i am in a constant state of being judgmental. and believe me, i am not saying this as some sort of admission of fault. if anything, i’m bragging. i don’t feel bad about it at all. actually, let me be the first to say that i don’t have all my ducks in a row, that i am just as human as the next guy, that i am not perfect, and that my halo occasionally needs some polishing. that said, i probably think very unhighly of you. now, if you are reading this, odds are that i think highly of you. but for the most part, i’m not impressed with people. not even a little bit. i sincerely believe that at least 95 percent of the united states population is stupid, lazy, uneducated, and boring. and i say this in full knowledge of the fact that you have a personal frame of reference. what i mean is this. if you were born in the projects or if you were born in a palace, you have a starting point. and based on your starting point, you are drastically underachieving. well, maybe you aren’t underachieving, maybe you are just living out the idea that you have absolutely no idea what you potential is or could be. it’s like a handicap. we all have one, but do we rise above the line, stay even with the line, or just be content to watch the line drift slowly away into the clouds above us like a helium balloon?

my dad was pretty adamant about this point, and it’s probably what makes me feel the way i do. there’s the parable of the ten talents in the bible, where certain people are dealt different hands. and one point in life is that yes, we are all dealt different hands. some people start with a big chip stack, some people have one chip. and the same thing isn’t required out of everyone, but the point is, we all have something to start with, and we all have a mandate to do something with the something we have. i think if there is any sort of epidemic in society, it’s the “burying your talents (chips)” epidemic. turn one into two, turn five into ten, that sort of thing.

i’m talking out of my butt here, because i think if you evaluated it, at this point in my life, i’m probably sitting on my chips. and by that i mean ass. am i turning one into two? two into four? four into twelve? i don’t think so. and so i guess the person i should be criticizing/judging should be myself.

now here’s the dynamic that confuses me. what about the guy who works his butt off and turns ten into five, or zero, or negative one? does that count for anything? e for effort? probably. and i think there probably is such a thing as effort points. or there should be. because life ain’t just about real life, if you know what i mean. also, to add to this point, i believe that ultimately effort is rewarded in the end, both realistically and metaphysically.

so here’s me > at this point in my life i am probably turning ten into eleven. last year, it was probably ten into ten. not bad, but break even. which i guess is bad. actually, it IS bad, if you believe in the Bible, which i do. but i fully believe for myself, and i fully believe for every person on the planet, that ten into eleven is totally possible, ten into twelve is definitely doable, and from there the sky is the limit. i look at my own life and get disgusted with myself when i feel like i am sitting on my hands, and i definitely get disgusted when i see other people doing it.

so i’m gonna try not to be judgmental. and i’m going to try to turn my ten into twenty. keep pushing. and all the stuff that goes along with that…

who i am is who i was

do we waste too much time trying to make up for mistakes of the past? do we compromise what the future might hold for us because we are not willing to realize that the past is the past and there is nothing we can do to change it? i have this pattern of believing not that i can change the past, but that the things that i do now, in the present, can somehow make the things that happened in the past better. as if the thing that happened in the past might be worth 10, and by chance the things i do now and the ways that i obsess over them might reduce the number to 9 or 8 or 7. i think i think sometimes that most of my life is behind me already, and that since i have so little time left, i should be trying to atone for the things i did and wish i didn’t, or the things i didn’t and wish i did. i lose track of the fact that in reality, most of my life is ahead of me, and i could be spending my time moving forward, creating new realities and opportunities and relationships.

but i don’t do that. i obsess. i think. i dream. i worry. i nitpick at myself. at the mirror. and i cater to a version of myself that doesn’t exist. it doesn’t exist because it’s in the past. it’s dead. the problem is that it still feels like it exists. it feels that way because that person was me, and i am me, and i will be me. memories i had when i was four years old feel the same as memories i had yesterday. my eyesight/viewfinder on the world has not changed. the only thing that has changed is the amount of space my body occupies in the cosmos. (which is a pretty small amount of space)

i look at the person i was (which is really only defined in my mind by the things i DID) and i look at the person that i am (again, defined by the things that i am currently DOING) and for some reason there is a disconnect. and of course it’s an illogical disconnection, but the reality is that it feels real and so if it feels real then it is in the position to have a profound impact on who i am and what i will do in the moments that are soon to play themselves out.

and so i end up doing things out of reaction to the person i WAS and not out of truth to the person that i AM and it becomes complicated. because of course, if the person i AM is really just remnants of the person i WAS, i end up in a never ending circle of inconclusiveness. i must be who i am, but who i am is who i was, and so forth. and i’m not trying to wax poetic or get all sorts of philosophical, i am just trying to make tangible thoughts and feelings that are too often intangible.

what it really boils down to, is that i have no idea who i am, i only know who i WAS. and this, in a sentence, sums up the dilemma of me, and my world, and being 27 years old.

i could go into a more spiritual point of view, about identity in Christ, and what it means to be human based on the principles that we are not our own, that we are bought with blood, but i don’t want to right now. i’m just trying to process the thoughts that i’m pretty sure most of us have when we look in the mirror and when we think about what we are doing and who we are as the days and months progress. it is too easy (for me) to say that “i am defined by Christ”, and while the truth is that i AM, the other truth is that simply that statement alone is no solution. it is almost a like a coat of paint that we use to slap on life when we don’t know what something means.

my pastor at the church i attend here in portland told a story about a young man who was a homosexual, and was a Christian, and in a church service that was open to personal sharing, the young man stood in front of the congregation and said “i am so and so, and i think i am gay, and i don’t know what that means”. and of course the young man was extremely conflicted with who he was and what he was supposed to be doing or not doing. and i guess i saw myself in that situation, and i reflexively inserted myself in the phrase, and it went something like “i am chris, and i am alive, and i don’t know what that means”.

and yes, i know that to live is Christ. but seriously, who ACTUALLY knows what that means?

rats

A scientist from Sweden did an experiment with rats in order to study the effects of “hope”. 6 rats were placed in 2 cylindrical tanks, 3 in each. The scientist made them swim around for awhile until they got real tired. They swam for the better part of one day. Then he lifted three of the rats in one tank out of the water for a little while, before placing them back in the water. This was to give them the idea that they would eventually be “rescued” again. He left the other three swimming. Didn’t give them any “hope”. Well in the morning the ones with no hope had drowned. The ones with “hope”? They swam around for THREE MORE DAYS until they finally drowned. Crazy and true. Hope is a powerful thing. It will keep you swimming.

There are several thoughts I have here. One, the rats lived a really long time when they had some hope of getting out of the water. Two, they died because they never DID get out of the water. Three, something about Barack Obama and healthcare. You draw your own conclusions.

Ok, that thought is done.

Alright, another thought, because I was thinking about it last night. I think that there should only be laws that relate to harming another person. For example, there should not be a law that says “don’t kill a dog”, but there should be a law that says “don’t kill a person”. I’m not about killing dogs, but I feel like this is correct somewhere deep down in my soul. Feel free to become incensed after reading this.

Guns make the world safer. True story. And I want a motorcycle. I will ride my motorcycle while brandishing my gun. I will be wearing goggles and cutoff denim shorts and a tank top. No helmet. (related thought: helmet laws are asinine) It might be raining, it might not be, I don’t really know. On the back of my motorcycle is a sticker that says “WELL I DIDN’T VOTE FOR HIM”. The sticker is pretty worn out, and you can’t tell when I put it on there, so the sticker actually makes no statement at all.

Okay I’m out. I’m gonna go do something awesome and then tweet about it.

robot cat

i wish i was like a cat. i wish i had nine lives. i wish there was a way that i could live, and then live again, and then live again, and then live again. be born, live, die. etc… and i’m not talking about in a reincarnation kind of way, i’m talking literally. there is so much to experience. so much to taste. so much that i wish i could try, or taste, or see, or feel. i don’t want to do drugs, or be with women, or debase myself because i know that i have another shot at it later, i want to experience life. i want to climb mountains in one life. i want to travel around the world in the next one. i want to become a doctor in the next one. i want to get really good at something, anything, in the next one. i want to be able to read every classic book. i want to go to all the amazing hidden places of the world. i want it all.

when i was a kid – actually, who am i kidding – when i was a kid AND right now, i wished (and i currently wish) that i never had to go to sleep. sleep was boring. i had to stop making my legos, or reading my book, or digging the amazing hole i was digging in the back yard. i had to stop living. i always wished that i really was like a robot. that i could just plug in while i was eating lunch, or dinner, and unplug and be recharged and ready to go for another 6 hours. don’t get me wrong, i liked sleeping fine, and i wasn’t afraid of the dark or of sleeping, i just didn’t want to. it wasn’t fun. it wasn’t exciting. i wasn’t moving forward while i was sleeping. and i still hold to the theory that sleep is unnecessary. i mean, if we actually could recharge like a robot or a computer, sleep would not be needed. and right now, you’re probably saying “but i LOVE sleeping”. i agree, i love it too, but i think we only love it because we need it. i love not being in pain, but only because pain hurts, know what i mean?

but i love life. i love almost anything. i want to be good at tennis, and golf, and chess. i want to know about all sorts of things, science, math, religions, countries, cultures, art. i want to be able to run a marathon and ride a bike for a hundred miles, and be able to cook a gourmet meal. i want to see what the top of the world looks like, and i want to see what the lowest parts of civilizations look like. i want to act, and be in a band, and build a house, and learn to fly a plane.

there’s just not enough time, and it kind of makes me sad. i try not to think about it. i just try to live and do things and learn something new and see things that i’ve never seen before. but sometimes i do think about it. i’m not really dissatisfied with the way that i am living my life, although i suppose that there are things i would change if i could. i’m glad i’m young and have time to change things, and i look forward to the things i can change. change is good. what i really end up thinking about are all the people out there that are just wasting their lives away doing God knows what. that’s what really makes me sad. i see them everyday. i suppose that if you don’t feel the same way that i feel, then it doesn’t really matter. you can live and die and that will be that. i want people to feel the way i feel though. i want people to be excited for life, for living. to get out there. to just fill up the days and breathe the air and feel the wind and rain and skin their knees and dig until their hands bleed.

when i was a kid – actually, who am i kidding – when i was a kid AND right now, i loved (and i currently love) reading calvin and hobbes comic books. and i remember there was a storyline in which calvin and hobbes are deciding what to do with their summer days, and they figure it all out and calvin joyfully proclaims, “the days are just packed!”, and he means it in the good way.

that’s what i want.

hate is a strong word

it’s way too late. i tried to go to bed but it is way too hot in my apartment and i can’t sleep. so i write for a while. and now i’m thinking that it’s too hot to think. eh. so hot. who knew portland could get so summer-ish?

ah. while i’m thinking about it, people should read Dochais. see the link just to the left? yes. good stuff there. (and maybe if she knows people want to read, she will write.)

just downloaded the coldplay bonus ep that accompanied viva. prospekt’s march, it’s called. pretty darn delicious. prospekt’s march (the song) actually sounds like a little bit of a parachutes throwback. very nice. they probably wrote it for all the haters that said coldplay stopped making good music after parachutes. ah. haters.

as long as we’re on the subject… i am totally a hater. i hate SO MANY THINGS. it’s actually ridiculous how many things i hate. i won’t say that i have been feeling guilty about being a hater lately, but i have definitely been thinking about it. i think my problem is that there are so few things (or ways of relating to things) that i actually deem as “cool”. “cool” is a relative term here, of course. but yeah, there are way too many things that i think are not cool. there are so many ways of relating to the world that i think are not cool. and it’s not that i think you shouldn’t do those things, or like those things, but it’s that i would never do those things or like those things. and i think everyone is like that, but i think that i am like that to a fault. i mean, if you could really take a look inside my old brain here, you would be amazed. i am a FULL BLOWN HATER. with a capital aytch. sometimes i keep it to myself, sometimes i don’t.

and i was thinking about that idea, of how many things i don’t like, and i thought to myself that maybe it’s not that i HATE those things, maybe it’s that i don’t respect those things. and that made a lot more sense to me, and made it a lot easier to sleep at night. but then, maybe not respecting and hating are really very similar. i guess the one overlaps the other when violence comes into the picture, right? probably. if i don’t respect you enough that i want to fight you, that’s pretty severe. then again, is it worth my time? yes. yes it is.

side note. speaking of fighting. the other day me and karl were sitting outside of our place of employment, enjoying a delicious cigarette and wiping the sweat from our brows, talking about all the piles and piles of money that we happened to be making that day, when a small toyota truck drives by. the dude in the driver seat leans way out the window, and directly at me, says “what did you say faggot?” and i got up and said, “excuse me?” and he said “well that’s what you are right?” and all this time he is driving away slowly. and so i kind of follow him across the parking lot and i say to him “don’t call me that, i don’t appreciate it” and he says “well the truth hurts i guess” and i said, “well come back and let’s talk about it” (which was probably pretty stupid to say in hindsight, but whatever) and of course he just drove off. the point is, me and karl were one hundred percent prepared to fight that guy. the end.

all right, back to being a hater. i don’t hate people for stupid stuff, like being gay or being black or being a woman. i hate people for real things, like wearing your hat backwards all the time, or putting a racing spoiler on your 1991 nissan altima or listening to dave matthews band. so there’s a difference. and i guess when it comes down to it, i don’t really hate you. i just think that the stuff you do is really really lame. but who am i to judge? it doesn’t matter anyway, right? right. life is too short. so i am gonna do what i think is cool, and you are gonna do what you think is cool, and we are both going to look at each other the way that a homeowner and a raccoon look at each other when the one encounters the other out back behind the trash cans and both are frozen for one crazy little moment in time.

if you know me, you probably read me pretty well as you read this. if not, you probably think i am a pompous bastard who walks around judging people all the time. and you are RIGHT. that’s the bad part. i guess what it boils down to is the fact that i tend to be pretty particular about what i want to be a part of my life. from toilet paper to toothpaste to the art on my walls to the golf shoes i wear to the sunglasses that i wear (never indoors, that’s stupid), i just want it to be the way that i want it.

i need to be more loving. gosh.

livestrong?

i was talking to a friend about lance armstrong tonight.  i have been watching the tour de france.  actually, i have been devouring the tour de france.  such an incredible race.  these guys are the best athletes on the planet, hands down.  they ride over 100 miles a day.  no, they RACE over 100 miles a day.  for 21 days.  today, they RACED uphill for a total of 12,000 feet of climbing.  twelve.  thousand.  feet.  makes me want to go jump on my bike and get out of breath riding down to the traffic light on the corner.

but.  we were talking about lance.  and i said that lance is a really impressive guy.  to me, he is someone who is someone.  someone who actually has drive and devotion and passion and a cause and visibly, daily, with maximum effort, drives for it.  he is a climber.  and they countered with the fact that his passion for cycling has basically made him one dimensional as a person and ruined his family and his marriage.  which is kind of true.

and i said that i think maybe we (and by we, i guess i mean men, because that’s what i am, or at least that’s what i’m trying to be) SHOULD be more one dimensional.  that maybe God didn’t make us to be well rounded.  that maybe he meant for us to be climbers.  the way it looks in my mind is that most men are boring and well rounded.  and i think that if they could afford it, more men would be climbers.  but society doesn’t make much room for that, does it?  i’m afraid it doesn’t.  and so we end up in jobs that pay us just enough so that we stick around, and we end up doing something that we semi-enjoy, but not something that really makes us happy, and we try our best to cover all of our bases and we try our best to be well rounded and we climb nothing save for the pile of dishes in the sink every night.

and we wonder why men have mid-life crises.  i’ll tell you why.  it’s because we reach a breaking point.  we suddenly realize that we should DO shit before we die.  see, if we have a mid-life crisis at the age of 25, no one calls it that.  but it’s really just the same thing.  if i go out and train real hard for a couple years and get in great shape and climb mt. everest, everyone will be impressed that i followed my dreams and did something grand.  but if i quit my job when i’m 50 and leave my family and go off and do that, they say “mid-life crisis”.  and i guess some of them are impressed.  i mean, i climbed mt. everest.  but everest isn’t the point.  it could be anything.  the point is, you gotta do it now, otherwise, you come out of the tunnel on the other side and end up smack dab in the middle of a mid-life crisis.

and i guess the final thought is that i would rather be a little bit reckless.  i would rather be a little bit more of a climber.  i would rather be less well rounded.  i’m not planning on ruining my marriage or my family, but i kind of hope that i am at least a little bit like lance. 

in the good ways, of course.

a two part question

i want to write.  i am vain, so i want people to read what i write.  fortunately, what i write is usually funny, witty, thought provoking, poignant, dramatic, or all of that rolled into one.  but, since i just spent most of the evening trying to figure out how to get this thing to look like anything, i am tired and won’t post a real post tonight.  plus, i need to go take a claritin (aka placebo) so i can stop sneezing by sometime tomorrow afternoon.