So, I think a lot of people here will enjoy this:



I feel pretty confident this guy will be doing great things, of which we will probably come across again.

On a slightly related albeit completely different topic of discussion, this is one of a continuing series of performances that make me want to shush the crowd.

In western culture, particularly American, there is an urge (possibly even a responsibility) to vocally express approval of a performance while it is ongoing. While the energy in some events, such as a football game, justifies this action, there are many others where it seems to obviously detract from the performance and yet we do so anyway.

This performance was a stark example. The music is very intimate, the motions gentle, and the crowd jarring in comparison.

This happens on a lot of things that I consume these days, though perhaps that's because I've been watching so much dancing material. But, even things like mix martial arts see very different crowd responses in some parts of the world. Specifically, in Japan, they treat MMA as we treat an opera, a hush over the entire crowd, with the silence being broken only on the most spectacular and unexpected occurrences. While I couldn't argue against others cheering in this case, I personally appreciate the silence far more; I feel it expresses a deeper respect for the contest taking place, and eliminates the feel of blood-lust in the crowd (and, indirectly, the community).

I'm curious how others feel about crowd cheers and jeers.

This is actually a topic that I considered writing about during this last break before I was sidetracked. At some point I'd like to research the origins and growth of this phenomenon.

((Edit: apparently this isn't coming across as I intended. The point of the post was to begin a discussion on these concepts. This is not intended to be an attack on anyone.))

These two terms are still in the growing stages and, as a result, seem to vary in what I’ve read. I’ll provide a short (and perhaps poor) summary on the part that is currently important to me:

Homonormativity asserts that everybody with any lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (homosexual) connection is and acts as if they were homosexual.

Heteronormativity asserts that heterosexuals fall within traditional gender roles and attitudes.

More reading, if so inclined:

Homonormativity

Heteronormativity

At this point in my life I am surrounded by gay friends. I have 2 circles of largely gay friends, and another circle of every-type-of-bisexuality friends. I don’t really have any strictly straight circles that I’m around with any regularity. My two closest friends are gay.

This isn’t something that I think about much. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t hang out with people because of their sexuality; I hang out with them because I think they are good people and I enjoy their company, and hopefully that feeling is reciprocal.

But, occasionally, and especially recently, I find that my sexuality is being questioned.

I am straight. But, since I am often in gay bars with my gay friends, and not ‘acting’ as straight as most other straight people, and not walking around with a girl on my arm, the notion that I can be straight seems to be difficult to grasp.

This is nowhere near the first time I have faced this attitude. I generally take it as a compliment; I hear ‘you are an individual’. That’s cool with me. I have fun joking around with it; pushing the line where I can for entertainment’s sake.

It’s more difficult to do that when a person’s attitude towards you changes just because you aren’t what they think you should be.

I don’t care that my personality doesn’t match what people think it should for a straight person. I’m damn well not going to act differently just because someone thinks I need to in order to prove who I am. It pisses me off that a person who belongs to a group that is still frequently persecuted, and who I have fought for regardless of the fact that I myself am not directly included in that group, is then going to turn around and give me attitude because I don’t fit in a particular mold. Insinuating that I’m not being honest, either with others or myself, is really insulting.

How is it that humans so consistently, and quickly, lose sight of the place we just left?

An NPR article circulating Facebook has been accompanied by some interesting comments.



YouTube collection of the videos uploaded by the campaign:



I do find myself concerned about how this could negatively affect an obese child's self-perception. I also worry about the potential of increased bullying.

That said, I know that these children will face serious health issues. I know there is a lack of honest dialogue with the parents, and between the parents and their children, regarding the obesity that each child is facing. I know that there is a complacency surrounding this matter that is curtailing the potential for corrective actions. I know that, having conditioned their body to live this way, and not knowing any other way of life, it will be increasingly difficult to correct this problem as they enter adulthood, and by the time they reach that point there will be some damage that cannot be undone.

Since the campaign seems to have been successful in bringing the conversation out into the open, I find myself supporting the campaign. I certainly would not have followed the same approach were I leading the campaign. I would have portrayed the children as empowered, challenging their parents notions about what is good for them, rallying against fast/unhealthy foods, and demanding better school lunches. But, with how many children are facing this matter, I find myself reluctant to shun an effort that I believe will have a net-positive result.

The organizers have said that this is the first of a 3-part campaign. Further spots will be more positive, with a focus on the actions necessary to combat the issue. It will be interesting to see what they cover. I hope that they are effective, and less controversial, as I believe this is a PSA we need in all states, not just Georgia.

This was never a way I wanted to make my introduction on this site, but since I pretty much know, at least slightly, everyone who is reading a post about me, I feel it necessary to correct some things that didn’t really need to be misrepresented in the first place. How orderly this will be is questionable, since it isn’t as if this was some single incident that happened. For the most part I will focus on the misrepresentations Tony is perpetuating.

First off, Tony is not an enemy; he is someone that I simply do not respect anymore. This is largely because he had made it clear he does not respect me. He might argue that last point, because he wouldn’t want to come across as someone that has disrespected me. However, the fact that he thinks he is my enemy, that he thinks I went to Brushwood and intentionally antagonized him, that he thinks I’m somehow worried he’d fuck my girlfriend, that I’m toxic, and so on, should give some clues as to how much he really respects me.

I’ll start off with the girl though. First of all, I wasn’t pissed off that he was flirting with a girl I was with. The situation was this: I walk up with Sarah right at my side, planning to introduce Tony and her. Before I can say a word, the second he turns around he goes right up to her, starts licking and kissing her face (of which she is glancing at me and obviously quite uncomfortable) and completely ignores Nick (our other friend in the group) and I. This goes on for about a minute, without any encouragement from Sarah, before he finally acknowledges us. I know it sounds so much simpler when you call that “flirting”, but I think most reasonable people would say that goes beyond flirting.

In this case, Tony was at least slightly intoxicated if not outright drunk and, while I was definitely annoyed, I could have dismissed it but for one thing: when I spoke to Tony about it a few days later, he made it clear that he did not regret anything and that he would do it all over again. Now, Tony’s approach of whoring himself out to any woman who will give a split-second of her time is not my approach, though I haven’t knocked him for it (I have expressed my disagreement with it). But, when he basically stated that I had to jump in-between them to stop this from happening, I had a lot of trouble seeing anyone but a selfish jackass who was putting his dick before his friends.

Now, mind you, I’m only scratching the surface here, and this wasn't the beginning as Tony claimed. A 15-year friendship is an invaluable thing to me. I can’t say this is as absolute a rule as I would like it to be, but I do try to accept and appreciate the foibles of my friends (and actually, I think I’m getting pretty good at this). I know that I have many, many foibles myself, and I know that reaching the point of friendship with others is tough for me since I am an introvert. For these reasons and others it took something much greater for me to decide Tony is not someone I want anything to do with. That is where honesty comes in: I cannot consider dishonesty anything other than a critical flaw, and Tony has been falling victim to this more and more as the years have progressed. Worse, it has been malicious.

His post is a good demonstration of his willingness to bend or twist the truth to his liking, if not outright lying.

He wasn’t concerned with going into the details of the Sarah incident. In fact, contrary to what he said, he never apologized. He was quite adamant about not apologizing, which is supported by the position he took. But now, according to his post, he apologized that night (we barely even talked that night, and certainly not about that, but, again, maybe it was his drunkenness).

He wasn’t concerned with the truth when he wrote about how I was out to get him at Brushwood; I wasn’t, I asked others to be sure nothing came across that way, and if Tony had actually committed earlier I was planning on doing something else (I had, in fact, committed before him). Surprisingly enough, I thought the weekend had actually worked quite well somehow, until he started txting others to express his frustration during the ride back.

He certainly wasn’t concerned about the truth when he talked about Jen. I didn’t move to Cali to be with Jen, I moved to Cali to look for work after graduating and to see some more of the world, and Jen enabled me to do that by offering her couch to me. I had just finished a great experience in Hawaii, and I was excited to do the same for another city. Another little problem in his claim is the fact that Jen had a boyfriend at that time, so it wouldn’t have made much sense to move 2600 miles to try and get with a girl in a committed relationship. But, you know, that’s just me out to screw Tony again. Worse, it suggests that I would ever go after a girl in a committed relationship, which is very much against who I am fundamentally, and I hope everyone other than Tony knows this about me (if you know me to begin with).

That wasn’t the only lie. Unfortunately, her boyfriend had some serious problems that were affecting Jen. She wound up breaking up with him while I was still couch crashing, and there was a point where we had explored stepping beyond friends. We both decided, for reasons Tony isn’t even aware of, that we would not. This was the 2nd of 3 different times where we had gone beyond friends, going as far back as 10 years ago, as much as Tony would like to suggest that Jen belongs to him. There was nothing that happened in any of those forays that made me hate Tony, contrary to his sentiment. Frankly, it had nothing to do with him, and I find it absurd that he thinks it does.

What does have to do with Tony and Jen is that, for 10 fucking years now, he has been stringing her along, telling her how much he loves her, yet never actually committing to her when the opportunities have presented themselves. Tony’s lack of commitment can be laughed off most times, but I don’t find anything funny about that type of attitude towards one of my friends in this scenario. Quite frankly, Tony has really become a bit of a chauvinistic ass in his treatment of women. He has blatantly stated that women are often nothing more than something to be fucked, and he is willing to use the exceptional social skills that he has developed since I have known him to get what he wants from them and then get the fuck out. So, to have him critique me on my treatment of a woman who I respect so thoroughly would be quite a laugh were he not serious. Anyway, I (mostly) digress. I can say I’ve never had trouble saying my thoughts to him outright (another of his misrepresentations), other than beyond the normal trouble I experience when trying to express myself. This includes anything that happened between me and Jen. Most of what is any of his business he already knows. Of course, very little of it is his business.

The whole part of his post about me that is “really fucking gay”? Yeah, another misrepresentation. Accidental, I’m sure. This wasn’t about me seeing pictures and getting sad. This was about Tony and I basically not hanging out for a year, other than Street Fighter nights (good times). Occasionally we would get into discussions about hanging out, and he would tell me that he literally hasn’t been doing anything and has been really busy with the house, etc. Of course, Facebook puts all that shit out there. I didn’t care so much about not being invited to those things; we all have our own lives, and I am an adult, geez. Again, it was just about the honesty. And, again, just a small thing that could have been easily overlooked. But, when he needed money from me in the middle of this year, all of the sudden we hung out 3 days in a row. The only time in the year when just the two of us were hanging out, and it happened to be when he was in dire financial straits, and 3 days in a row. He would insist the two had nothing to do with each other, but, sorry, I just don’t buy that. Had he just been honest, asked for the cash, and skipped the buttering, I still would have been fine with lending him the money, as I have many times before because I will always try to help out my friends when they ask for it.

The most classic Tony moment in that essay is his belief that my envy of him is what’s pushing us apart. Tony doesn’t realize just how little I envy him. Yeah, I’d like to improve my social skills, but even if I were as socially talented as he is, I'd still prefer to build deep and lasting relationships with people as opposed to knowing a few superficial details about a thousand people in the city. Beyond that, he has nothing I want. He takes advantage of people and gets away with it because he is entertaining. He has told mutual friends that he would buy their house that he was renting, but I knew when he first said it he likely wasn’t speaking the truth, and time has proven that belief. He is renowned for his lack of commitment, and this is what has made it difficult for me to not show up when he is there since our friendship ended. I passed on a Thursday in the square because he was going there with the group I was invited with, but then the group never saw him for the rest of the night. I decided I’m not going to cater to his whims.

As we neared the end of our relationship and he told me not to come over and visit his roommate Sameer, he did so by saying that I was a threat to his property and, most disgustingly of all, to his daughter. The fact that he would suggest I would harm his daughter, a girl who slept in the house I lived in, a girl who supposedly would one day call me “uncle”, a girl who was nothing more than a child, well, yeah, that’s one of the comments that could still lead me into decking Tony. That was an absolutely despicable tactic, and was close to solidifying the end of anything amicable between us. The fact that he is trying to say I have hurt people before is another blatant, disgusting lie. I am not a vindictive person. If you commit some horrible wrong towards me, for the most part the worst that can happen is what is now happening between me and Tony: I simply don’t acknowledge your existence. Not surprisingly, he offers no evidence of this side of me.

The last nail in the coffin though was when we were talking at my house and trying to hash things out yet again. Over the year, Tony had made it clear that there were many things he did not like about me nor respect about me. I was struggling to understand why we were friends at all. He would make me feel like shit about myself, telling me how I need to stop doing this or how I’m an ass by doing that, finding the smallest thing to criticize without ever really expressing anything he liked about what I brought to the table. I’m already very self-conscious around people, and he was feeding these irrational fears.

During the final conversation, he stated that there was no point in talking to me, because I can and will simply say whatever it takes to make myself right. Now, I can’t say I’m always able to pinpoint and weigh the values of varying points being made, nor is my logic infallible, but I sure as fucking hell make an honest attempt to reach a valid conclusion, or at least contribute to an honest dialogue. I care about it so much that it was the primary reason I studied philosophy. Uhg.

By the end of that week, after a great deal of reflection, I had realized that Tony really didn’t respect any part of me, nor could we even have a discussion considering what he believes about me. Worse, I realized that he was a ‘friend’ who was constantly making me feel like shit about myself. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since our friendship has ended I’ve been in a much better mood.

In the end, Tony’s egomania and dishonesty are just not something I want to be around. I can’t hang out with someone who believes so much of who I am and what I do is somehow out to get him. That I am so base of a person to commit the acts that he thinks I would commit. I have my flaws, but now I have one less flaw in my life.

That being said, I apologize that this drama is taking up any time in your life (except you Paul, I know you’re enjoying this, lol). And, sincerely, I’ve really enjoyed everyone I met in this circle. I hope you don’t take Tony’s opinion of me too seriously. I don’t open up quickly, but I think as you come to know me you will see that is not who I am, as long as you don’t let him taint the glass you are looking through.

I’m sure Tony and I will find ourselves in the same place again. When that happens, I will continue to place myself away from him as best I can, and I apologize for any awkward situations that do come about.