I may not be with you for a while now. Not one, but two games that I HAVE to play come out tomorrow. Embarrassing I know, but I can't help it. I don't buy many video games, especially not at full price when they first come out, but these are my staples, the reasons that I even have the stupid consoles. And, at least one of them is multi-player, so it can be a quasi-social activity as we sit around and throw shells and banana peels at each other. The other...no hope there, it will suck my life away for the next couple weeks. So if you don't see/hear me in the coming weeks don't worry. I'm alive, just not on the same plane of existence. Dork!

In about twenty minutes I will be returning to work for the first time in a month and a half. Matt made a joke yesterday about going it by equating it with the first day of school, I wish. Where is my feeling of anticipation? I am glad that I will be getting a paycheck, but that's about it. I love the idea of serving the public, but I don't feel that that's the only thing I'm doing. I need a new job, but am trapped in my American Dream. The horizon (props to Holly) of fading debts reducing to null is retreating faster and faster rather than approaching; isn't that always the way. So, I will go, I will work, I will get a paycheck; I will consume; I will charge; I will be forever indebted (largely due to my wonderful education which gets me so much now). C'est la vie!

With whiteness pulsating,
All-encompassing view through
Tortured panes reveals
Nothing... or Alle.
Has it come to the end
Must we bow our heads,
Oppressed in blanketing silence
Ne'er to hope again.
The fleeting shadow,
For so it may be called,
Found under and betwixt
Leaping particles, crystalline.

We shall see if fags can really rock the punk. Mohawk Place tonight...probably in an hour or two. I will update this journal with the results of experimental gay punk rock. Be excited, be afraid, but don't be campy.

Wellllll,
hmmmmmmmm....
Pansy Division was different from anything I've heard before. I like Mohawk Place that there are always different groups of people there depending on the event/music. This was the first time I've seen mostly gay people there. I personally was caught between different worlds and couldn't seem to find my bearings, which resulted in much wandering around and head bopping/half dancing. I definitely think that punk and gay should be mixed up more (they're both anti-mainstream side groups afterall) but I just kept getting stuck in their gayness. Plus, one of the guys was like super-emoticon or something. His face was permanently plastered in various outrageous pantomimes from ecstasy to rage to befuddlement. I just couldn't look at him without feeling strange stirrings of fright. In conclusion, go and see them for the spectacle/strangeness but I wouldn't buy their poster and put it on the ceiling next to Bowie unles you want some really funky nightmares.

An informed democracy is a functioning democracy. What more needs be said? Just last night I was talking with a friend about the media and whether it's biased and if it is, why? These are all troubling topics worth discussing, but what really threw me was the total apathy that my friend was feeling towards politics and political views in general. He told me he wished that we would all just stop talking about it period. This is the ultimate failure of the media and moreover of our democracy. The media is so bent on informing us all of exactly what we should know, yet at the same time is so see-through that everyone knows they're being lied to. No wonder we don't want to talk about it. But we have to. Democracy is all about informed citizens making informed decisions. You become informed by first-off caring enough to get information, and secondly by using this information and discussing its relevancy. It should be required of all of us to spend an hour every day talking about our government, our economy, our foreign policy, whatever. Talk people, it's good for you.
Another major hurdle is cutting through all the bullshit. How many times have you sat at work with co-workers and had to pretend to laugh or empathize as talk rounds the table of the latest and greatest commercial or episode of the West Wing? Ever tried to gently steer the topic towards something real? I have and met with varied degrees of success. Some people just don't feel comfortable talking about it (the old adage about not discussing politics or religion) which to me is counter-democratic. How have they taught us that talking about politics (short for how your life will be allowed to be lived) is bad? Others blithely quote the NY Times headlines, thinking they're really informed. These are the worst, because they are convinced that they know what's happening. Try to bring up some other points of view and they say they haven't heard that (suggesting that if it wasn't in USA Today then it can't possibly be true).
These two categories, the uninformed and the misinformed, make up way to high a percentage of voting age Americans. Where does the fault lie? With the media of course. A content public is fed a never-ending stream of amusement littered with bits and pieces of half-truths and obfuscation. A perfect control mechanism. The elite now control the means of production (corporations), the means of control (government), and the means of disseminating information (media). Kings and emperors had nothing compared to this system. These three systems also act as screens, diverting attention from the real power. At least when things were hell for the peasants in France they knew who was the cause: the King the King. Now it's the utility company, the county tax office, or the newspaper, even though Mr. (King?)Rockefeller may happen to own controlling interests in every one of them.
While I have little hope of changing the corporations or the goverment in the near future, there is hope to remove the lynchpin which holds the whole house of cards together. Yes, the media. We can take it back, and we're beginning to all over the country. Already the internet is a great tool to get connected with like-minded people, both in and out of your own community (see mine and others' links). Efforts are also being made to take back some of our (yup, we own 'em, not Clear Channel) airwaves. Democracy Now is the cutting edge program out there and is getting bigger everyday. People want to hear the truth and are going out of their way (unfortunately it does take some effort) to get it. To this end the Buffalo Coalition for Progressive Media has been formed with its first goal of bringing Democracy Now to Buffalo. By January we hope to have it available on Buffalo's airwaves. We'll be posting periodic updates on the homepage, so keep an eye out, and, of course, please feel free and urged to join the cause. Democracy can survive if the people care enough to make it happen.