Do Crime!

Category: Ramblings

  • Everything comes down to what they say about you when you’re not around.

    The title of this post comes from the song “Dead, Drunk and Naked,” by the Drive-by Truckers. I think about this song lyric a lot. It’s probably one of my favorite lyrics. (Maybe I should start another page of all my favorite song lyrics.)

    It gets followed up with the line “And I wish that he was here now, I’m sure he would be proud, No one talks about me now.”

    When you think about it, that’s all we really are, isn’t it? Our reputation? No one gives a shit about our jobs, or our hobbies, how many video games we’ve played, or what shows we’ve watched on Netflix.

    What they do care about is: Do we show up when they need us? Are we honest? On time?

    This actually has caused a bit of an existential crisis in me lately. I always strive to be the kind of friend I’d like to have. I volunteer to help move, I’m always reaching out to check in, or make plans. I try never to cancel them. But, I’m not grappling with the fact that it may not be entirely altruistic.

    There’s another band, Shelter, who are a “Krishnacore” band, and their lead singer has an interview where he talks about playing music, and whether or not it’s maya or divine. He also tells the story in his book. But, basically, one of his mentors asked him once if he was playing music in worship of Krishna, or if it was because he was trying to be “god,” that is, if he was doing it for the positive attention.

    When I heard him say that, it really sent me into a spiral. Am I trying to be a good friend, or am I performing maya (I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’m spelling or using this phrase right) by wanting people to talk about me in a positive light when I’m not around. I’m grappling with this, and I’m worried it’s similar to the “nice guy” effect. Which is creepy and gross. I don’t want to be creepy and gross- at least in that “look at me!” kind of way.

    That’s all I’ve got. Listen to The Drive-By Truckers, listen to Shelter. Do crime. Plant a garden where you shouldn’t.

  • Movies and Krishna and hardcore and Jesus and joy.

    The title of this post comes from a line by my favorite band The Hold Steady, in their song “Almost Everything.” It’s off of what most of their fans consider their worst album “Teeth Dreams,” yet the older I get, the more this album grows on me.

    The full line is: “Sat in the back of the theater just drinking and talking about movies and Krishna and hardcore and Jesus and joy.”

    This line has been rattling around in my head a lot lately. It brings up a lot of deep, middle-aged despair in my, fueled by nostalgia.

    It brings me back to a time in my life, between 16 and 22, where I spent a lot of nights sitting around with my friends, usually in the back of diners, or Denny’s, parking lots, and riding around in cars, where we just listened to music, and debated religion and politics, talked about our favorite albums and movies and books.

    Now every conversation I have is about money, or chores, or people’s kids. The religion conversations I have now are “you should join my church,” or “just trust Jesus.” These contrast steadily to conversations of old, where we debated the existence of God, talked about Christianity vs Krishna, where the councils of Nicaea held any merit. Political talk today feels the same. It’s “Democrats are bad,” or “Trump is a dictator,” or “ICE is the president’s private militia.” Any yes, I agree with some of these statements, yet they miss any nuance. I miss talking about what politics need to change, how to do it, why tax rates matter, where the money should go.

    I miss having these in depth conversations, where when voices got raised, it was with passion and reason and logic, and not some blind faith to the absurd with no reasoning other than “you’re wrong because you don’t believe me, and I won’t and can’t explain my position.”

  • Hauling all the groceries in, while taking out the trash.

    The title of this post is a lyric from Modest Mouse’s song “Spitting Venom,” from their album “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.”

    I think about this lyric quite a bit whenever I’m doing chores at home. It is just an on going, never ending battle. It’s one of those quiet things that I feel like no one ever talked about when I was growing up, and even now, as adults, while I hear the stupid phrase “adulting” a lot, I feel like I don’t here people talk about how such a motionless activity (to borrow another phrase from the song) doing chores really is.

    Lately, I’ve had this desire to really go through the stuff in my home, and get rid of what’s broken, or unused. Some of it I still have an unhealthy attachment to, for no reason. Some of it, I have truly forgotten about.

    I’ve been slowly going through what I can, and getting rid of odds and ends. Do I really need a plastic walrus that I bought for my desk at a job I had in 2013, and has been shoved inside a tote under my home desk ever since I quit that job?

    Yet, as soon as I let things go, it seems like I’m getting more in it’s place. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve acquired a small shelf, a free weight bench and weights, a sleeping bag, a wire rack, and a motorcycle – all for free. Granted, the motorcycle is temporary, as I offered to sell it for a friend who moved to Texas. Yet, it still feels like I’m stuck in place as I try to cast off things I own, that I don’t use.

    It reminds me of the quote from Fight Club “The things you own end up owning you.”

    I’ll continue to try and declutter, and not let more things in. Until then: Do Crime. (Victimless, non-violent.)

  • Let’s take the internet back

    I’ve been spending a lot of my free time lately on Reddit. Probably too much time if I’m being honest. It’s my go-to time killer when I’ve got downtime at work, or home.

    Like a lot of people (I think), I’m getting tired of the endless doom scrolling that Facebook and Instagram offer, with their curated algorithms, which I’m convinced are designed to piss me off. It makes me miss the old web 1.0 and web 2.0 days, where it felt like I had an endless amount of websites to visit, even if they were someone’s personal blog, with whom I had no connection. Just a place to exist, and read, and learn about things from first hand accounts. Whether it was someone’s passion project on a geocities/angelfire site, or was just their day-to-day blog, it was light and encouraging.

    While I do get a lot of information from Reddit, it’s often interspersed with karma farming, people looking to make a quick joke, or trolls.

    So with that said, I’ve decided to start a blog. I’m just going to talk about the goings on in my life, my hobbies, my dog, things I find interesting, and hopefully inspire someone else to do the same, and slowly, we might just be able to take back the internet.